Four week "wait no more" organizing challenge: Week two: the pantry

We have a small kitchen, but a wonderful butler's pantry right off the kitchen. It has tons of storage  am space, and one corner of it actually functions as a coat closet. There are lost of great shelves and tons of storage space. My eventual plans are to overhall the space by painting or wallpapering the space, adding shelf liner, and adding a cute door instead of the builder grade interior door. I'd also like to buy more matching baskets so the pantry will have a more streamlined look, but this will be done as the budget allows. I have plenty of other projects in front of this one, so I am not sure when this will happen.

We had this pantry beautifully organized last summer. You can read about that here. There truly was a place for everything, and everything was in its place. But then we got lazy. Really lazy. There were things hanging out of the baskets, and it truly was a giant pain.

First of all, let me apologize for the poor picture quality. There is no natural light in here, and it's a long narrow room. It's hard to capture a good shot.

Just look at all that mess hanging out of those baskets. Look at those completely empty baskets taking up space. Look at all that stuff in the floor! 

Recipes: Brown sugar glazed pork chops

My husband and I made these wonderful pork chops last week. They were absolutely delicious and I will definitely make them again. I will say this: We have attempted to make these twice, but the first time, we tried to make them in our George Foreman, and all the rub stuck to the grill plates and burned. :( When we tried again, we made it just like this recipe says. They were definitely a hit.

21-day organizing challenge: Week Three Recap

This marks the final post of the 21-day organizing challenge. I hope you have enjoyed the challenge, as have I. Thank you for being patient with me during the 21-day challenge. During this 21-day period, I have been swamped at work, my dad has dealt with a lot of health issues, and we’ve experienced the hospitalization and eventual death of another relative. To say our plates have been full is an understatement.  Rather than my family taking a back seat, I’d much rather my blog take a back seat. Now that things have calmed down, you can be sure we will be back on a regular schedule now.

21-day organizing challenge: Week one recap

Things have truly gotten busy at the Boone house in the past two weeks. In fact, I've barely had the time to DO the 21-day challenge, much less blog about it. I have done the challenge, though, and I've decided instead of making a DAILY post about the challenge, I'll do a weekly post. 

Originally, I had written days one and two as two separate posts, but for the sake of reading, I decided to make it easier. I also back-dated a few posts into weekly posts so I wouldn’t have to write one big, long, exhausting post. In the first week of the 21-day organizing challenge, we organized all of the following spaces in our house: kitchen cabinets, pantry and coat closet, entry way, desk and home office, bathroom cabinets, and linen closet. 

21-day challenge: Day one- kitchen cabinets

Welcome to the 21-day challenge, day one: kitchen cabinets.Before we get started, let me issue a quick disclaimer I failed to mention in my first post: To join the challenge, you do not have to do ALL of the daily challenge. For example, if all you organize is one cabinet, you have participated in the challenge for day one :)

Common Sense Cleaning: Kitchen and Dining Rooms

As with any project or task, it's best to do a little at a time instead of waiting to do it all at once. If I don't clean my kitchen a little every day, I can easily spend two hours at a time just cleaning my kitchen. The entire point of this series is to share tips for having a clean house without losing all your spare time to cleaning. 

Pantry organization

  

I love our pantry because it has plenty of storage space. We do not have a large kitchen. However, our large pantry makes up for the lack of square footage in the kitchen.  One corner of our pantry functions as a coat closet. Because there is so much space, it would be very easy to "junk it up" and not organize it at all. I didn't want to do that, so I tried to organize it as I was unpacking our kitchen. As always, if your system doesn't make sense, you aren't organized :) Our pantry boasted really nice built in wood shelves. However, I still chose to maximize the space by using shelf risers. They are inexpensive and can be purchased almost anywhere. I also used simple white Rubbermaid baskets so they could be wiped clean with a damp rag. Clear canisters are also a must so I can see when I'm running low on pasta, cereal and baking goods. Since I want everything to have a place and always be returned to its proper place, I used some free editable labels from Better Homes and Gardens. There are a plethora of free printable labels available on Pinterest, too. 

Kitchen organization

I don't have a large kitchen in my house. We do, however, have a large pantry, so it doesn't really matter that our kitchen is small. Plus, the cabinets and drawers have plenty of room. My kitchen is cozy and I really like it. In a strange way, its small size forces me to keep it more organized.

Due to the layout, it's impossible to get the whole kitchen in one shot. I had to take a few pictures from different angles.