Alicia On A Sunny Day: ORGANISED KITCHEN

Today I'm sharing how I've recently organised my kitchen and a few tips I've learn along the way!

Since moving to our house 2 years ago everything has pretty much stayed where it was put on moving day. Appliances & plastic containers here there and everywhere. While the kids are on school

holidays and I'm not working I thought what better time :) So grab a cuppa it's going to be along post! ok it's not that long ;)

Tip #1 Sort things out & throw away what you never use.

Lets start at our island secret cupboards! This is where I was storing kids homework books, light bulbs,cds, movies and other random things. Now we have built ins in our living room the movies and cds now have a place to go, the kids have book shelves in their rooms so books can go to rooms. I am planing on having a decor cupboard so all decor related things will go there.

Now that both have been cleaned out I had to think about what would be best suited for the space

Tip #2 Practicality

These are awkward cupboards to get to because they always have stools in front of them so I'm putting things I use the least here like blender, juicer, pie maker, popcorn maker, drink containers and cooler bags.

Now on the other side of the island.

Draws always end up looking like a dump zone in my house, so once again sort and clean out! I went though all the take out menus and threw away any doubles. (most restaurants have menus online so you don't have to store one).

After!

Placemat draw needed tiding up and sorting. I threw away old ones that I never use, by doing this I was able put other things in here like cooking gloves, table runners and ham bags.

After

Tip #3 De clutter!

The last draw was tea towel draw! Really who needs this amount of tea towels?? I threw away all the old, stained and ripped ones which left me with a nice amount and I am moving them to another place you'll see later on where.

I decided to make the last draw the kids draw for lunch boxes and drink bottles . Their bottles were standing up in a cupboard before and it was always looking like a disaster zone when the kids go looking for a specific bottle the rest generally get knocked over and are spilling out every time the door is opened.

I also threw away about 6 bottles which where old and yuk.

Next on to the pantry.

sorting out again, I threw away any cans and packets that were out of date. I also brought some new items you can see in my favoutrits post to help get this cupboard organised.

After!

I have moved all appliances out of this cupboard as they now have a place to go you'll see where next.....

The bottom half of cupboard has potato's and snacks along with birds,cats and dog food, its the kids job to feed the animals so they are in a convenient spot for them to access.

This cupboard 👇 was once the bathroom towels and junk cupboard! We have absolutely no storage in our bathroom so they were living in the kitchen, we are planing on building a new bathroom vanity and cupboard for the bathroom so for now the towels are in baskets under our vanity and out of the kitchen.

After!

It has all the appliances in it and the bottom section holds some vases and decor. I also hang keys, school notes and bills on the inside doors so the mess is hidden. I bought these magnetic clips from office works and have used double sided tape to stick them on.

This was the kids cupboard before with their lunch boxes, bottles and some plastic conatiners which now have new places :)

After:

I now have made this the baking/ cooking cupboard! Measuring cups, mixing bowls, ceramic and glass baking dishes.

Lets talk Plastics draw!!! I sort through this draw all the time and with in a week it ends up looking like this! I threw away all of my old plastics and invested in new stackable ones I bought from Coles called decor match ups they are great!

After

See how much space it also gave me space so I could bring all my glass storage containers to the same draw.

I have found that grouping items with similar items helps with the flow of the kitchen for example, our draws are on either side of our stove 3 draws on each side. On the left hand side top draw is our junk draw, second plates and bowls and bottom draw now has serving plates and salad bowls (which used to be on the other side and salad bowls were in one of the top cupboards) but now altogether :)

On the other side top draw is cooking utensils, second and third draws have containers.

I have made a medicine cabinet which stores vitamins, medicines and first aid kit. I also had a tiny shelf which worked out to be a great place for chopping boards. I have also used little bowls to hold band aids, safety pins and other small items.

Cups cupboard is all sorted, bottom shelf has every day cups along with coffee, tea etc on the other side, Middle shelf has egg cups, travel mugs and shaker cups and top shelf has all the other cups we don't use a lot.

This is a random cupboard! It holds bigger bulkier items like salad spinner, strainers, our steam boat and bamboo steamer.

Under the sink always seems a mess. I threw a lot away, also had a lot of doubles that had been opened so I tipped left overs into the other opened bottle. I Purchased baskets form Kmart and have used them to group similar items together.