Spring Cleaning: Kitchen Organization

I took a whole day to work on the deep cleaning of the kitchen, pulling the stove and refrigerator out to clean under and behind them, but while I was at it I decided there were a few areas that needed just a little more organizing.

Here are the before and afters of the few areas I re-did.  Hopefully this will give you some ideas for your kitchen too.

Time:  Less than 5 minutes  I used a Double Duty Caddy by Thirty-One because of the 2 different sides and 4 outer pockets.

Time:  Less than 5 minutes  I used 4 of the Oh-Snap Bins from Thirty-One because they snap together and will stay put.

My extra plastic shopping bags were all piled in the floor and all over the pantry, so there is no before picture.

Time:  About 5 minutes  I used reusable shopping bags to stuff all the plastic ones into and then hung them from the shelf with a Hang-It Up Key Fob from Thirty-One

I hope this has given you some ideas.  If you have any kitchen organization tips you would like to share, please leave a comment.

Spring Cleaning: Getting Started

Over the next few weeks I will be posting about spring cleaning tasks.  We all hate it, yet we all know that it must be done.  I like to think that I'm a clean person all year long... but pull out my stove or refrigerator and I'm absolutely horrified at the mess that accumulates under and behind them!

This year to make my spring cleaning a little more fun for me I'm documenting some of it and writing up tips and tricks I've learned over the years.  I hope this will help out some of you that dislike this daunting task as much as I do.

First thing I always do is gather my supplies.  I usually don't have all my cleaning stuff in one location throughout the year.  I keep certain things in certain cabinets or rooms.  When I start my spring cleaning though, I gather everything together in an easy to carry container, so that I can move from room to room without running all over the house to grab this or that.


Speaking of running from room to room, some tasks are better split up for me, while some I do all of throughout the house at one time.  Each week when I dust the ceiling fans, I do all of them first before I get started with the weekly cleaning, rather than doing the fan in each room while cleaning each room.  I take the same approach to certain tasks during spring cleaning.

Baseboards, on the other hand, I do while doing the room they are in.  One year I thought it would be a great idea to do all the baseboards in the whole house in one day.  Ummmm, yeah, I couldn't stand up after a couple hours of that and didn't even manage to get them all done that day.  So, for me baseboards get done for each room on a different day!

I like to make a realistic list of what tasks I want to accomplish and make myself a schedule.  Then I try really hard to stick to that spring cleaning schedule and not get distracted or side tracked with daily or weekly tasks.  As much as I dislike making to-do lists (mainly because I forget where I put it when I need it) I do make a list on my phone of everything I want to get done and mark it off as I do it.  I usually allow about a month to get everything done, but that is mainly because I only work on my tasks in small chunks of time, rather than killing myself trying to get it all done in one weekend.

The last little thing I do before I get started is to find a few audio books and make a few playlists.  I have found that when I'm doing tasks that are mundane and boring (like scrubbing baseboards) listening to an audio book is a lot better for me than music.  However, on the flip side of that, I must have up beat dance type music on when I am shampooing the carpets.

So, gather your supplies, make a schedule, put together your listening pleasures and let's get our houses organized and cleaned together!