Pages

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Kitchen Cabinet Tour

Happy 2015!  The first Monday of the new year is right around the corner and that means I am going to immediately start sticking to a budget, lose weight, be healthier, be a better parent, be a better wife, blah blah blah blah.  Honestly, yes, I want to do all of those things, but we'll see how it goes.  I always feel like if I have an organized kitchen, then I will eat healthier.  It has never really worked, but my kitchen needed a bit of an organization overhaul anyway, and that is just what I did this past week!  I am also following along with an organizing challenge on one of my favorite blogs, A Bowl Full of Lemons.  You can read the kitchen post here.

First, here are two photos of my kitchen.  One side is the "kitcheny" part and the other side is the eat-in and "officey" part.  The lighting in this photo is giving the cabinets a yellowy look, but I can assure you that they are white.



Now on with the tour starting with the cabinets and drawers to the right and working counterclockwise.  I keep our glasses, mugs and travel cups right above our Keurig.  


The cabinet underneath the Keurig has all of the extra coffee, tea, etc. pods and packets.  All of the baskets are from Target.  In the back of this cabinet is where I store our party type of dishes and bowls, such as chip and dip plates, large snack bowls, etc.  


The junk drawer.  This organizer is also from Target.


The glamorous towel drawer.


Under the sink.  You can read more about that here.


Plates and bowls.  I keep all of our bigger plastic drinking cups in here since they don't fit in the other drinking glass cabinet.  That red thing on the bottom shelf is an apple slicer.  I keep it in here because our fruit basket is right underneath this cabinet on the counter.


Typical silverware drawer.  Nothing fancy.


Plastic baggies, plastic wrap, wax paper and aluminum foil go in this deep drawer.


Our spice cabinet and drawer.  You can read about them here.



Cookie sheets and cutting boards go in here.  Please don't mind the look of these and our pots and pans.  I swear I have cleaned them as well as I can.


The cabinet above our stove is a little hodgepodge of stuff.  Some baking items, pancake essentials, dessert toppings, seasoning packets, etc.  


This is our plastic container cabinet.  I keep the smaller containers in a larger plastic container on the top shelf.


Pots, pans and strainers are in the cabinet underneath our stove.  I bought the lid organizer from Bed Bath & Beyond.


Our lazy susan houses all of our extra cereal containers, pitchers and thermoses, as well as extra baking ingredients.


This cabinet is for lunchbox essentials, cookbooks and kid cups, plates and bowls.


Another glamorous drawer.  The pot holders and oven mitts.


In this smaller cabinet, I keep our flour and sugar canisters as well as containers of other baking ingredients.


The cabinet above the oven houses all of our Corningware, Pyrex, oils, vinegars and cooking sprays.  My husband's large containers of protein powders and whatnot also made their way in here.  I had some command hooks lying around which I used to hang up our measuring cups.


Underneath the oven is where you can find all of our cake, loaf, cupcake and pie pans, hand mixer, glass measuring cups, mixing bowls and other baking utensils.  In the back, I also have a container with cupcake liners, sprinkles, cookie cutters, icing, etc.  You can read about my baking cabinets here.



The medicine, vitamins and supplements cabinet.  You can read more about that here.  I also hung a Martha Stewart pocket on the cabinet door for keeping prescription refill papers, medication directions, etc.


I hung another Martha Stewart pocket on the side of the fridge.  In this pocket, I keep take out menus and helpful tips for our NutriBullet.  


Utensil drawer.  The divider is from Target.


This cabinet is where I keep all of our choppers, slicers, dicers, etc.  In the back is our old Ninja blender and up near the front you can see our NutriBullet containers.


We don't use the cabinet above the refrigerator very often, just because it's not easily accessible.  All we keep in there are rarely used recipe books and binders.  My husband also keeps his crayons up there with a binder of pictures that him and the kids colored together.  He likes to have his own sharp, clean, unbroken crayons for when they color.  He thinks he is a master colorer.  Haha!


We keep a basket on top of the fridge.  In there you can usually find bags of chips and snacks.  We also have our Christmas candy stash up there right now as well.



To the left of the refrigerator are two tall, deep cabinets.  This is our pantry.  I try to keep it organized, but it's hard to do.  It's hard to know what's in the back because you can't see it and there's really not that much space, so everything is kind of shoved together.  The top shelf has dip mixes, extra condiments and tons of spaghetti sauces.  The second shelf has spaghetti in the very back and then Mexican type stuff towards the front.  The third shelf had canned fish and canned vegetables.


The bottom cabinet is a little bit less annoying simply because we installed some drawers from The Container Store.  The first shelf has condiments, sandwich spreads and soups.  The second shelf has rice, mac and cheese, sides, chicken stock, popcorn, etc.  The third shelf is mostly for the kids.  Lots of fruit snacks, crackers, granola bars, etc.  The bottom shelf is where we keep oatmeal and cereals.  


And that's every single cabinet on the "kitcheny" side of our kitchen.  I will share our "office" cabinets in another post.  Now that my kitchen is cleaned up to my liking, maybe I can get this year off to a good start as far as healthy eating goes.  Wish me luck!  :)