Kitchen Tour: Organized Drawers Part 1

Ever write an entire blog post so all you have to do in the AM is add pictures and then post.  Then, something goes terribly awry and you’re left with the first three sentences.  Sigh… yeah, that happened. 

I am not letting that get me down, because I have completely organized all my kitchen drawers (- 1, more on that later).  I mean seriously I am super excited.  Yesterday, While walking through my kitchen with a crying baby on my hip, a whining 2 year old close behind, and a 4 year old asking one of his 45,867,967 questions, I opened one of my drawers, and laughed out loud… it made me that happy. 

Anyway, before I get on with the tour, let me give you a bit of a back story.  We all love a good back-story.  Right?  Okay, actually this will serve as an excuse as to why some of my cabinets and drawers are so disorganized.

You ready for it?  My kitchen is huge.  Yes, I know that is a piss poor excuse, but hear me out.  It’s the largest kitchen I’ve ever had, this includes while growing up when I didn’t actually own a kitchen.  Because of always having a small kitchen we didn’t have much stuff.  I am not one for buying things that can’t fit in a space.   We had no appliances (save a toaster), a minimal number of pots and pans, as well as the basics in terms of cutlery, dishes, and serving things.  So when my hubby and I unpacked and moved into our home, there was A LOT of empty space.

As our family grew (and grew), those empty spaces began filling up.  Suddenly our walk-in pantry that at one point held only a few cans and jars was now chock-full of our most recent SAMs club run.  The cabinets and drawers that had been empty were slowly getting filled with all kind of random things.  Ever have an extra drawer? It becomes a junk drawer; multiply that by 5 or 6.  Even the cabinets just started getting filled with stuff.

In the past I have made some attempts to wrangle our kitchen, even going as far as Googling what people actually keep in their kitchens.  Some of those attempts very successful some so so, but I’ve never done a top to bottom clean out, overhaul.  Until now!

So with out further ado, welcome to my Kitchen Overhaul Tour.  Check out the Art Center Here.  

The Main part of my kitchen is a large U shape with a center island.  In this post I'll start at one end of the U and go around. The island drawers will be in a separate post.   

So here are some before shots.. GASP!! Shame on me... I know it!!!  The two top left are the worst.  I was keeping (some of) the kids' school supplies in there.   No matter how much I packaged all the pocket chart cards in baggies and what not, it was still a mess.  These are only some of my drawers, I figured, you didn't need to see all my mess.

For all of the drawers I removed everything, vacuumed crumbs, and washed them down with warm soapy water.  I used a square, and utility knife to cut my liner.

Remember, it always looks messier before it looks better (at least when I do a project).

Here we are mid way through on Day 3.  Yes, it took me three days to do just my drawers, take a look at that mess up there again.

Okay, on with the good stuff!!! So this may be a photo overload for some of you, but here we go.

 You can't see it, but there is a window above the sink the faces my backyard.  The bright window in this picture faces the side of my house.  The door with the wreath is my pantry.  The first set of drawers I will show you will be the drawers along the far right of the picture above, basically facing the back of the house.

These two drawers are side by side and the closest to the Art Center.  One holds everyday place mats, the other, kids utensils, straws, and plastic utensils.

 These two are side by side and next to the sink.  I keep everyday dish towels and cloths in one, and seasonal in the other.

 I keep my regular flatware in this drawer which is right next to the dishwasher.  All our grilling tools are in the other drawer.

 The following drawers are at the bottom of the U if you will.  There is a window that faces out the side of my house.  This is typically where I do all my baking.

The drawer in the top picture holds serving utensils, coasters, and bottle openers.  It is basically my entertaining drawer.  The other drawer has sandwich cutters, along with cookie cutters I sometimes use on sandwiches.  My cheese graters. are in the back of the drawer because they are rarely used.  My food processor does most of my grating.

These are my two baking drawers.  The drawer in the bottom pic is closest to the oven, and houses all of my most commonly used baking tools.  The other drawers hold my less commonly used baking tools.

Okay peeps.. almost done, hang in there!!

This is the drawer under the oven.  Remember I said I did all my drawers except one? This is it.  Totally forgot about it. Imagine my surprise as I was dancing around the kitchen snapping after photos and I stumbled on this.  Oh well.

These last two drawers contain all of my storage baggies, and food wrapping.  There is no before shot of them in the messy mishmash up at the top because they look the same, except they now have liner.  These drawers are right next to my fridge and are now coming up the other side of my U shaped kitchen (follow all that?).  There are actually three drawers side by side, the bottom pic being the center drawer, but I have no idea what to put in that last drawer.  So it's empty, until I give it a job.

I always keep a sharpie in this drawer for easy labeling.

WOW... that was long.  I think I'll break the reast of the tours into even smaller sections.  If you made it to the end... Thank you so much for hanging out!!  I'll be back through out the month as I complete more and more projects in my kitchen.  I hope you'll join me.  I promise not to make them so long as this.

Until next time, 

Leiah