Clear the Clutter Challenge: Kitchen Organization
Are you looking for tips and tricks for kitchen organization. I’m sharing some easy and inexpensive ideas for decluttering your kitchen and maximizing the space you have!
Kitchen Organization Tips and Tricks
I am so excited to be posting the first installment of the Clear the Clutter Challenge: Kitchen Organization edition! Each week I am co-hosting this challenge with Keri and Katie so be sure to check out their spaces! The kitchen is a great place to start as it is the hub of the home. If this area is messy, it sets the mood for the rest of the areas of the house. While the kitchen is a great starting point for the challenge, I can also say it is a HARD room to tackle! I am excited to see how all of you organized this room!
Starting this week, we will pick our favorite space from the previous week to feature. We will select one blogger from the link up and one member of our Facebook group! Be sure to link up (see rules below) or post a picture to our Facebook group! If you’re not already a part of our Facebook group please click here to join! We share tips for organizing, behind the scenes, and it’s a place to ask questions and join in on a community!
Clear the Clutter: Kitchen Organization
Without further ado, I will share my kitchen pantry and cabinet clear out! There were two specific spots in the kitchen I focused on–the food pantry and the large cabinet that contains the rest of our food (mainly baking ingredients). These two areas seem to be the biggest sources of disorganization in our kitchen!
Before you get started on kitchen organization (or any decluttering project) be sure to answer these FIVE QUESTIONS.
- What is my end goal with the space? To make it easier for the entire family to access our food and to be able to see clearly all the food that we have.
- What is currently working in the space? We have several bins and containers that are great for storing food. The cereal and snacks are placed at eye level for the kids–the most popular food in the house!
- What is NOT working in the space? The baking ingredients are in two different spots making it time consuming to gather all of the ingredients. There is no organization to our dry goods and staples.
- What tools (baskets/bins/labels) do I already have to complete the space? Before you go out and purchase new containers, see what supplies you already have on hand. Perhaps you can repurpose some bins and storage that are not being utlized.
- Is there anything I need to buy to help reach my end goal? I could use a few more snap storage containers! I ended up purchasing a few storage containers to complete the project. Kate had shared a Walmart deal on baskets on the Clear the Clutter Facebook group. Unfortunately, my store was completely sold out of the specific baskets. But, I found several other items that worked perfectly for the space.
Most items I purchased are not available online so I’ve listed a few alternatives!
Kitchen Organization: Before and After Pictures
First step, I took EVERYTHING out of the pantry and wiped it all down! The amount of snacks we had really put things into perspective! I have enough food to last us for awhile.
I then looked over all the food and threw all the things away that were old or not going to be eaten. This is a great time to clear out the pantry since we are trying to eat healthy! Out went all the candy and cookies! Then, I organized the remaining food and grouped everything by categories: staples/snacks/cereal/oils & vinegar, etc.
On to the fun part- putting everything back! I organized the snacks and cereals on the same shelves as before, but it is much more organized! I cut down on the snacks, put some food in storage containers and put the healthier items in the front for easy reaching!
All the kids snacks organized in one spot!
An entire bin for hot chocolate ingredients!
Cereal containers at an easy reach for the kids.
Pantry before:
Pantry after:
After the pantry was organized, I still had to get to the cabinet! This space has been used for baking ingredients and spices. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of this cabinet before I started to organize! But, let me tell you it was a mess! Every time I would open the cabinet, I would duck in case something might fall out of it…ha ha!
Previously, some of the baking ingredients were in the pantry but it wasn’t user friendly to go to the pantry for some ingredients and cabinet for others. So now all of the baking ingredients are in the cabinet. I think it will flow much better!
Be sure to throw away old spices regularly as they do go bad!
I purchased these very inexpensive storage containers for all of our baking supplies like cupcake liners, food dye and cookie cutters.
Baking supplies in storage containers
I had a lot of cookie cutters. So, I narrowed my stash down to what I could fit in this container.
However, I completely forgot to take a picture of the before of my baking cabinet, but I did snap an AFTER picture:
A few final notes:
*Be sure to show everyone in the home where everything has been placed or no one will be able to find anything!
*Clean the entire space once finished so you can enjoy (and admire) your hard work!
*Before you buy a bunch of bins and containers, be sure to shop your house! I was able to use a lot of containers I had on hand!
*When in doubt if you should throw something away, get a second opinion. An outsider’s perspective can be really helpful!
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Now that we’ve finished kitchen organization, we will be focusing on closets! So excited for you to link up below! Not a blogger? Join the Facebook group to share with us your space or use the hashtag #cleartheclutterchallenge and tag us on Instagram!
I can’t wait until we move so I actually have a proper pantry! Right now I’m working with a very small space, your insta stories inspired me this weekend to clean it out!
Yay! I’m sure you’ve got a lot of ingredients to organize in your space:) A big pantry might have to be your top priority in your next home!!
The after looks so much better! I also love that your pantry shelves pull out!
Thanks Kate! The pull out shelves are really useful…especially for the kids!
Looks great! I love the pull out shelves in your pantry. I need to go through my kitchen again
Thanks Roxanne! It’s always a work in progress..I’m sure I will keep adjusting things based on what is working!
Ugh I need to clean my pantry out so bad! Thank you for so very helpful tips!
I think cleaning out the pots and pans would be the hard part for me there’s just so many of them and they all have a different purpose but they take up so much room, I really need to condense. I’ve never really thought about using storage containers like you used but it makes perfect sense!
The “after” photos are amazing! I love cleaning and organizing the kitchen. It’s so important because often things are left to expire and get bad if you don’t clean them out!
Love this! It’s awesome that your shelves pull out! We have some that do that, but not in the pantry.
You made some really good points about identifying what is and isn’t working first and also showing everyone where the things are once you’ve organized it – also helps people know where to put things back!
What a fun challenge!
Love those pullout shelves!! What a lifesaver!
Ahhh! I totally need this challenge! My house is a WRECK right now!
I love using containers for everything!
I love the way it looked afterwards so much! I just did this in my kitchen, but now I think I need to go back and try the storage containers on some items.