Organized Home Challenge: Week 1-1.5

It's time to get organized!  Check out the Organized Home Challenge over at Home Storage Solutions 101.  I'm excited to get my house all put in order this year.  It's part of trying to get my life put back in order.  I've felt just all discombobulated lately, and I want to change that!  (How often do you get to use the word "discombobulated"?  I love it!)

Weeks 1-2 of the Organized Home Challenge had to do with kitchens.  Surprisingly, this may be the most organized area of my whole house.  Probably because we have a pretty small kitchen, so everything has to have it's place or the whole room becomes a disaster very quickly.  That actually gave me an out the last week, because a lot of this was already done!

January 7 - Declutter small kitchen appliances.  Mine all have homes.  Most of them live in the pantry, on the bottom shelf: food processor, blender, rice cooker, dehydrator, and slow cooker.  The toaster and the mixer have cupboard space.  Done!

January 8 - Clear off kitchen counters.  This is a daily chore!  It seems like every time I go in the kitchen, there is a toy, the mail, or some random object sitting on the counter!  So, I'm just having to make myself more aware of picking things up as I walk through.  Done!

January 9 - Clear off the kitchen table.  We don't have a table in our kitchen, just in the dining room.  And it's usually cleared off so we can eat.  Occasionally the kids leave coloring books or something on it, so again, just being more aware and picking things up! Done!

January 10 - Declutter everyday tablecloths, napkins, placemats.  Do people actually use these everyday?  I can't remember where my holiday ones even are.  Maybe someday when I don't have little people who spill things...Done!

January 11 - Declutter excess plastic cups and water bottles.  OK.  This one I had to do.  How do we accumulate so many water bottles??  I didn't take pictures (OOPS!), but I think we threw out or donated something like 15 water bottles.  I kept the ones the kids got at summer camp - they are really good bottles.  Plus we have 3 large ones that we keep for camping - they went down to the camping tub.  The only cups I kept were the mugs (with lids) that we got from Walt Disney World last year.  They are awesome mugs, and souvenirs.  Done!

January 12 - Declutter ziplock bags, foil, plastic wrap, etc.  These already have a drawer that stays pretty neat.  Done!

January 13 (Reading Day)

January 14 - Declutter kitchen cabinet shelves/drawers.  This goes with...

January 15 - Declutter kitchen junk drawer.  Alright, this is where I had work to do.  I am constantly getting new kitchen gadgets.  I love gadgets!  But sometimes a good purge of the utensil drawer is necessary.  I have 2 drawers and a canister for utensils.  Here is what they looked like before:

Try finding something in that mess.  And who needs three ladles and 5 sets of measuring cups, anyway?  I went through and got rid of a bunch of junk.  Anything broken, stained, or starting to melt went in the garbage.  The rest of the stuff I got rid of went to Goodwill.  It made a huge difference just cleaning out those drawers!  Here are the after shots:

Up next is finishing the kitchen cabinets and then it's on to the pantry...probably the scariest part of my house! :)