Mal and Murphy chose to sleep in today, but I started my day bright and early. I slept through the night (without a single trip to the bathroom), so I felt energized and motivated as soon as I woke up. It’s been a long time since I felt like that first thing in the morning! Yay!
First on my agenda: breakfast!
Breakfast
I toasted a gluten-free English muffin from AllCanEat and then added some sunflower butter and banana slices on top. I caught up with my celebrity gossip in US Weekly while I ate. (Today was the first morning in awhile that I actually missed my usual glass of iced coffee, but I guess that’s a good sign, right?)
I spent the rest of the morning catching up with emails and writing my Health post for next week.
Mal woke up a little while later. He ate breakfast and took Murphy for a walk. When he returned, we got started on our big kitchen organization project. It’s been a loonnnng time coming, let me tell you!
We started with the most annoying/cluttered situations first. The dog stuff/vases/Soda Stream cabinet made no sense and stressed me out every time I opened it. In fact, this cabinet was the catalyst for our entire kitchen organization project.
BEFORE: Dog stuff/vases/Soda Stream
AFTER:
The second most annoying/cluttered area was the cabinet where we keep the water bottles and travel mugs. Every time I’d go to get one, I’d end up knocking them all over and making a huge mess. Mal and I went through and picked out a few bottles and mugs to donate, and then stored our least favorite ones in the back of the cabinet and put our favorites up front for easy access.
BEFORE: Water bottles and travel mugs
AFTER:
We also organized our coffee drawer, which is right above where we keep the water bottles and travel mugs, but I forgot to snap a “before” photo. Trust me, it looks a lot better!
The dish situation in our kitchen was also a tad out of control, so we made some adjustments to the shelves to maximize the space and then we weeded out a few grungy dishes from our collection to donate.
AFTER: Mugs and glasses
AFTER: Bowls and plates
Then, it was onto the toughest project of the day: our food cabinets. Yikes!!!
Mal and I started by taking everything out of the cabinets and assessing what we had on hand. We then decided whether to keep or donate certain food items before we placed everything back on the shelves, nice and neat.
BEFORE:
AFTER: Canned and jarred goods, rice, soup, pasta, nut butter, and snacks
BEFORE:
AFTER: Tea, drink mixes (I still don’t know how we ended up with so much space), vitamins and supplements
BEFORE:
AFTER: Grains, protein powder, lentils, oats, oils, cereal
We even busted out the label maker for our big organization project!
Mal spelled ”˜bulgur’ wrong, but we decided not to change it because it cracked us up. (We’re five years old like that.)
BEFORE:
AFTER: Baking goodies
Snack
Once the food cabinets were organized, I stopped to snack on a Chocolate & Coconut Raw Revolution Bar, which was delish. It’s my favorite flavor so far!
We desperately need to go grocery shopping, so cleaning and organizing the refrigerator took no time at all. Going through the ridiculous amount of condiments that we owned was the hardest part.
AFTER:
The last project of the day was the pantry/shelves in our back hall. It’s basically a big catch-all for stuff we don’t know what the heck to do with, including small appliances, serving dishes, reusable bags, Tupperware, etc.
Even after we organized it, it’s still a catch-all for things that we don’t know what to do with, but it’s a lot prettier to look at now.
Lunch
By the time we finished, I was starving for lunch. I whipped up a ham sandwich with Laughing Cow Cheese spread on one side and caramelized onion mustard on the other.
Oh my gosh, delicious sandwich!
(So far the cheese isn’t upsetting my stomach!)
Exciting afternoon ahead: gym and Whole Foods. I know, craaazy day!
73 Comments
it’s so funny how similar our pantries look. i guess food bloggers get a lot of the same samples to review!
I love organizing the kitchen! Kudos on reusing those jars for the grains. They look really pretty! Also, the lazy susan cabinet looks awesome-ours is a hot mess and I hate it. It’s impossible to make it look neat and tidy!
Caramelized onion mustard? Wow, that sounds amazing!
The kitchen looks great, nice work! We’ve been in our house for just over one year now and could stand to re-organize our kitchen as well. Thanks for inspiring me to start thinking about it!
I love looking into food bloggers’ kitchens 🙂
I hate ham, but I really want that sandwich! Please tell me where you get caramelized onion mustard! 🙂
I love finishing an organisation project, so satisfying! It’s the getting started thats the issue for me 😉
Wow I’m so impressed you managed to do that all in a day! My sister and I cleaned/organized our food pantry and that alone took us 3 hours!
Looks awesome! And you have so much cabinet space (lucky!) I also love when I get things organized
I’m inspired. Thanks! Hey, is Mal a University of Oregon fan? His hat sure looked like it supports my alma mater.
organizing makes me feel SO good! i love that i am not the only one. i have been known to organize me cans in the pantry so they all face the same way. ha, question is how long does it stay that way??? ha.
I’m an organizing freak! My kitchen cabinets are so organized and I have everything labeled too… it’s kind of weird, but it makes me happy! Iced coffee sounds so good right now too… Is 2:30 too late to have one?? 🙂
Tina, you have dinosaur pancake molds?!?! I expect to see you whipping up some gluten-free dino pancakes with those molds ASAP!
I weirdly love kitchen organizing. My solution for the pantry was to get a bunch of similarly sized containers that I can see through and because places like the container store can be expensive when you’re buying a lot, I got them in bulk directly from the manufacturer. (I bought my containers through uline.) I bought a bunch of clear grip jars & round jars. The initial purchase was a little pricey, but they are easily reuasable and the consistent sizes make them fit better in the pantry. Plus it’s been worth it in not buying duplicate items and being able to buy more in bulk!
I put all my water bottles in an old shoe box. That way I can easily pull the box out of the cabinet and they never tip over! so much better than my old organization method which was just chaos.