Kitchen De-Cluttering and Reorganization

When we moved in I unpacked the kitchen by putting everything away where I thought it would eventually go.  I had the intention of later re-organizing and making the kitchen more functional.  Since then no one has known where anything goes so dishes and ingredients get randomly shoved in cupboards.  This has made cooking and baking hard.  For my family I believe that an unorganized kitchen definitely means and unorganized house.  We live in our house every day, all day.  Since we homeschool we use the kitchen 3 times a day for meals and more times for snacks.  Our dining room table is usually where we do projects or schoolwork so when its messy in there things slip and don't get done.  Eventually the clutter takes over and everything is a mess.  So last week I finally did it and re-organized the kitchen.  Here are some before pictures.

This is what you see when you walk in the front door.  I really like it when this area is tidy and neat.

 

Another area you see from the front door.  This unfortunately also becomes the catch all spot!

My largest counter

Bowls and Glass

Plates, cups, and weird corner cupboard

Coffee Mugs, Bread

Misc Baking/Cooking

Dresser and Garbage

Top half of Pantry

Bottom half of Pantry

View of the front door and living room

Corner Cabinet

What happens when you open the door to the corner cabinet.

Top of fridge and above cabinets

And the after photos:

No longer a catch all!

I reorganized cabinets, cleared counters, scrubbed drawers, and put everything back in order.  Then I proceeded to label each and every cabinet and drawer.  This is not something I have done before and Joe and the kids LOVE it!  I thought they were going to laugh but instead they said it makes putting everything away so much easier.  

Decluttering time again

We have been in the new house for 6 months now and I can see that its time to declutter! I've had more than enough time see how we will use each area of the house. I really need to make use of the closet space we have and do some major sorting. Summer clothes have been brought out (not sure why with this rain) but winter clothes are still out, so laundry needs sorted through. I also need to sort through the home school and craft stuff. We just received a large order and I realized I don't even know where I am going to put it all! So I once again am starting the decluttering process, which I love to do. I've posted about my thoughts on decluttering before and you can see those if you click organization in the list on the right. Hope your Juneuary is going well.

My New Sewing Room

We have been rearranging around here lately. My sewing stuff has been housed in the living room until recently. I now have my very own sewing room. Well kind of my own, I'll share it, maybe. We decided to move the three older kids into the master bedroom. Joe and I don't use our room except to sleep. Naomi is still co sleeping with us and naps in there but otherwise the room sits unused all day. We measured and moved our king bed and the side carred crib into the smaller back bedroom that used to be Madeline's. They were excited to move as they can have the bunk beds again if they are sharing a room. With the bunk beds, a toddler bed, and 2 large shelves they still have a huge amount of play space left in there. The living room is so much nicer now and looks twice the size. I will make sure to get some photos of the other rooms and post them so you can see the difference.

View from the door of the sewing room

Some of my fabric. Isn't it pretty. I love me some fabric. I like to feel it and pet it and feel it. Especially minkee, oh the feel of minkee. This is mostly flannel, wovens, fleece, knits, and felt. The small totes contain patterns, thread, and trims. The top three squares are projects in progress.

One half of the closet. The very top shelf is mostly storage items. The other shelves hold miscellaneous notions, the scrap box, my snap press, and yes more fabric. Fabric over here is corduroy, denims, terry cloth, and holiday fabrics. The other half of the closet contains my roll of newsprint for pattern making, bolts of fabric, and some storage totes that contain the two little girls outgrown clothes. These will become their keepsake quilts. Which I usually give them about age 4 as they can remember some of the more recent clothes by then.

There was room for Madeline's desk and her sewing machine. She has an older Kenmore we bought used at the local sew and vac. It is a great machine for her.

My precious, oh I mean my sewing machine and serger.

Table number two. This one is holding my new baby (sorry Naomi). Its a Brother LB-6770 sewing and embroidery machine and it arrived yesterday!! I cannot wait to use it. The drawer storage is really great. Everything in this used to be housed in a storage tote and I would have to dig and dig and it was always messy. Drove me nuts! So top drawer holds my business cards, postcards, magnets, and other miscellaneous advertising items. Second drawer holds my hang tags, ribbons I use for packaging, and labels. Third drawer holds my snaps for my snap press, size tags, sweater shaver, lint roller, etc. Last drawer holds my instruction manuals and poly mailers.

More storage totes. The first one on the left is completed items, middle is fabrics that shed (teddy bear fabric, oh my gosh its messy!), and the third one is wool sweaters that are waiting to become something else.

Kind of an awful picture but the sun was out today and letting in all this gorgeous light. Mmmm sun, must soak it up now before its gone. Okay back... This is the shelf for some of the homeschooling stuff. Books that we don't want Naomi to rip or Marah to color on. The older two kids workbooks and Madeline's scrapbooking supplies. There are a few empty shelves that I will fill with Madeline's craft stuff that she can't keep in her room because of the littles. Mainly her water color set and other messy like crafts. She can come in here and create at her desk without the interference of little hands. Unless I'm sewing then there will be littles in here as well. So see I am sharing. :)

And for your viewing pleasure. Some of the items created by the machines you just saw. Click on the photos to see the full size images over at Hidden Element.

And blogger spell check just so you know serger is too a word. Serger not a word. Sigh...

Home Management Binder

As promised here is more about the home management binder we use. I love using this binder. It adds a bit of sanity to our ever crazy and un-scheduled days. We are constantly going from one project or topic to another. The flow of our days is ever changing and having a few lists of what should be accomplished each day really helps me to actually get it done. As much as our days change so does our binder. It is a work in progress and one that I think will never actually be completed. As the kids grow so do our needs and wants. I would eventually love for this to one day be the central binder that everyone uses. But for now I am content to be the main user with a few helpers now and then.

The front of the binder. Its just a 3 inch white binder from Costco. I buy these in bulk. We go through a lot of binders.


Inside front cover are the weekly menu's I tried out a few months back. I like them but prefer the monthly plan better. I may try to combine the two when I get a bit of time.

This zippered holder has pens and wet erase markers. It should also hold my scissors and a calculator. If anything goes missing in this house its scissors and calculators. Hey kids give me back my stuff!!

First page is a contact sheet. Ours needs updated as I noticed Joe's old work cell number on there. I found this sheet here. You could easily create your own or find another to fit your needs online. I have found that typing printable before what I am searching for usually brings up many different choices.

A monthly calendar. Look how wide open the month is. As I look at it I can fill in 3 different weekends all ready. Must get on that. lol

At one point I decided I wanted a daily schedule. A loose version of our day. Yeah that never was filled out. I don't even know how to begin to plan our days. 4 kids, 1 mom, 3 meals, and lots of interests that lead us down many paths. We tend to take what the day brings us. But meals yes those can be put on this sheet, those are consistent. I do feed the kids, every day even.

Look it even has half hour increments. I am just laughing at myself here. This will most likely be taken out unless I can find another use for it.

Well someone other than me must use the book. This looks like a note of the three year old kind. Must say 6:07 am wake up mom, 6:10 am yell at mom to change me, 6:11 am whine that I want to do it all by myself, 6:15 collapse on couch in exhaustion because mom just does not get that the pink diaper is not okay she must go find the long lost green diaper.

This is the first page of the household chores section. You can click on the pictures to see them bigger. First page is daily chores. On a good day (and I mean really good day) I get most of this done but not always. I'm a Stay At Home Mom not a Stay At Home Maid. The kids help out with clean up time twice a day and I ask them to pick up after themselves but its a work in progress. I'm guessing I will not be picking up their underwear at 18. Right?

Each day of the week I have weekly chores and focus cleaning that I would like to get done. Again these things may or may not get done depending on the day and what we have going on. Each day is given a room or two rooms. As you can see I have things that are done each week in these rooms. I also have (on the right side) the focus cleaning. These are larger chores that I only do one of each week for that room. So you can see that on week one on Monday I would wash the blinds in the bedrooms. The focus cleaning chores help the larger cleaning stay maintained. These are also excellent paying chores. :) As I complete chores I cross them off with a wet erase marker and leave it there until the following week. This way I can come back to it later (See the weekend) or make sure I get that item the following week.

Monday

Tuesday's list. This one has two rooms so I color coded the room names and the chores that correspond with those rooms. It looks like a lot of things to do but if I stay caught up on everything it really is not. It has just been done the week before, or 4 weeks before for the larger cleaning jobs, so it really is just maintenance after the initial 4 weeks at the beginning. It feels like it takes forever at the start but once you go through one cycle you notice a difference.

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday and Sunday are light days. No focus cleaning at all. Sometimes I will catch up on things missed during the week. These two days are also the only days I have a car during the week so I have to get any shopping and errands done these days.

A stain removal guide. You can find a lot of these online. I liked this one but find that I need another one with other kinds of items on it. I'm not drinking a lot of red wine during the day and the kids well they are not either. I like this but its not in a chart form.

This is in there just because it was neat. I can't find it anywhere but here.

Next up is the meal planning section. This consists of a pocket with all of the old meal plan calendars and a pocket with the blank calendars. I print out a few months worth every so often.

Coupons is next. I have three coupon sections. Food coupons, household coupons, and restaurant coupons.

After this there is some blank paper for note writing and list making. I want to add a section for the kids paying chores. We all talked and they are going to start getting paid once a month. Currently we write it on the marker board and try to remember to go to the bank or dig through the change jar. This way it will become part of our monthly budget and they will get something kind of like a paycheck. It will be cash but as they do chores they can write them down and at the end of the month we will add it up together. Another section I am adding is a budget section. We currently use the envelope system and need a place for those as well as the budget we write out every paycheck.

So there you have it. I hope you are excited about making yourself a home management binder. I would love to see pictures of your binders and links to the items you have chosen to put in them. Feel free to leave them below in the comments section.