A Coffee and Tea Staion

Hey there!  So, on Sunday night I was smiling.  Seriously smiling... And tired.  It was 12am (I guess that makes it Monday night.) and I had just finished organizing the last cabinets in the main part of my kitchen.  Yeah, I still have the Command Center to spruce up and the fridge and pantry need some love, but the main part is done. It's like wow, every cabinet door I open reveals a clean and seriously organized space.  I'm in love.  My cabinets have finally become part of my home, a place to store things for my family, and not just a place to hide or stash stuff.  Check out my baking station if you missed that!

Today I want to share my coffee and tea station.  It, along with my baking station, has been apart of my kitchen from the start.  It's the place I set up our coffee maker on move in day (or weekend).  It sits right  between my fridge and toaster.  Easy access for creamer, and cream cheese for my breakfast bagel.  All my little tea things tucked nicely into a little basket, It made me happy for a long time.  I was perfectly content making my coffee at home, occasionally a green tea with lemon.  Then Dunkin' Donuts released it's ice cream themed summer flavors, one being Butter Pecan.

I kind of lost my mind for a while.  Like, I was seriously a little cray cray!!  The kind of crazy who would load the truck with 3 kids in pj's (and sometimes a dog), take a 10 minute drive to Dunkin Donuts (closest one), then wait in a 5 (sometimes 10) minute line, then order a medium (or large) iced butter pecan coffee (light and sweet of course), then drive 10 minutes back home, kind of crazy.  I mean I had to have it.  I was taking the drive 3, sometimes 4 times a week, just for an iced coffee!  However, like I said, I am recovering.  Too much sugar, too many calories, too much money, too much wasted time in the car!  I decided it was time for a change.  So to help entice myself back to my little mini coffee and tea station, I gave it a bit of a makeover.

This is what it used to look like.  By the way, please excuse these pictures.  I am neither a photographer, or user of fine equipment.  This picture was probably taken with my iPhone, and the after pics were taken late at night, definitely with my iPhone.

Anyway, there's a lot of crap in there!!  Sorry, but seriously, remember I said there was just so much space.  All the empty space was calling for random crap.  I do most of our school time in the kitchen, so there is a lot of school stuff stashed away here and there, in all the empty space.  There was even Easter grass! SMH!! That's Shaking My Head in case you didn't know.   So, yeah, you see all those empty containers?  They were used here and there for projects or activities for the kids, but this is not the place to store them.  There's construction paper, that doesn't even fit nicely.  A mess, just a mess!  You can't even see my cute little basket I had all my teas and things in.  I had long since grown out of it, but never changed or upgraded... until now!

Just so you know what we are looking at.  This is the area directly to the left of my refrigerator.  No Kale Chips tonight, I had only some crystal light in my favorite Wonder Woman tumbler to keep me going.
  

Here's my finished project! Smile... I did just looking at this dark, slightly blurry picture!

crooked much?

Okay from the top: I'm keeping my mason jars here because they are used for drinks, but very rarely, mostly for parties.  On the opposite side I have my seasonal mugs.  I always use the brown polka dot ones for hot chocolate.  I'll switch them when the seasons change.  I've been placing most of my rarely used items on the very top shelves.  I'm tall (5' 8") but still have trouble reaching the top shelves, and I don't want the hassle of getting a step ladder out frequently.

The next shelf down is protein powder for smoothies and shakes, as well as extra NutriBullet accessories.  That is my cute little basket I've always had!  Glad I found a way to make it functional again.

Do you see that empty space?  At first, I was a little concerned.  Would I fall back into my bad habit and stuff it full of something I need to hide?  NOPE!  I have a plan.  This area is strictly for drinks, and drink making.  It is not for school supplies, or a wooden letter D, or Easter grass, or any other random item that needs a hiding spot!  If something goes in that spot, it will belong and be a perfectly welcomed member of the drink community.

Anyway, I decided at the last minute to add my blender because A). there was space, and B). it made more logistical sense, since a lot of things I use for smoothies, are in the fridge or freezer, and of course its for making drinks!

On the bottom shelf, under the blender, I have a few mugs.  My husband doesn't drink coffee or tea often, but I leave his "Good to be King" mug with in reach just in case.  I typically rotate between 3 mugs, the other is in the dishwasher of course.  I also keep the travel mug handy for when the need arises.

Next to the blender I've placed two new bins.  I love these bins, I picked them up from Lowes by the way.  One holds coffee and chocolate.  Those packets are actually Carnation Breakfast drink.  Sometimes I make the boys a chocolate banana smoothie using those.  The other basket holds my growing tea collection and tea ball.  They fit perfectly on the shelf and keep all the loose packages nice and neat.

On the bottom shelf under my two bins, I have items I use for smoothies, tea, and coffee.  I placed some Truvia packets in the white sugar bowl, I have a ton of little spoons for stirring, mixing, and even adding ingredients.  There's almond butter, and ground flax seed that I snagged from my baking cabinet.  I mostly use it in smoothies, so it makes more sense here.  Behind my little sugar container is a small bottle of agave nectar.  My health nut uncle talked me into trying it as an alternative sweetener and I have not regretted it.

So that's it for my coffee and tea station.  I guess it's more of a drink station at this point.  There are still a few things I'd like to do, the main thing being, to add cute labels to the bins.  Also, I want to get another Better Homes and Gardens container to put the protein powder in.  I just think it will look a little prettier that way.  SMH and LOL at pretty protein powder!!

I'm heading out of town for the week, and I'm not one of those super organized blogger's who has posts lined up, Sooo I'll have to share more next week.  Until then, have a wonderful week... and enjoy these last few precious moments of summer!!

Leiah

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