It’s kitchen day!!!!!!

It started with this.Okay, not exactly kitchen decluttering, I was gearing up for it by drinking my coffee and watching Charmed. C’mon, just the outfits they wear are worth the watch. Did we really wear this in the early 2000’s???

I’m just going to put this out there, I don’t stage photos, like ever. What you see is exactly how it is. I see absolutely gorgeous photos on instagram that are so sleek and styled you know there is no possible way the room is like that in real life. Plus, I prefer the slightly rough around the edges accounts. They seem more real life and relatable. Know what I mean?

This is my kitchen in which I’m going to go through every single item to decide if I love it or not. (told you I don’t stage my photos)

I don’t have a lot of counter space, so instead of taking everything out all at once, I was going to have to do it in “shifts”. I decided to start with cabinets in the far right foreground. Glasses and pots and pans. I figured I’d start with the easiest ones to give myself confidence that I could actually get the whole thing done in the few hours I had.

This is the before. Not too terribly bad, but I had some things I needed to get rid of.

Step one is to take everything out. I don’t think I realized just how much stuff was in that one cabinet.  Can we say overwhelming? See how much better just removing the things you don’t use and only keeping what you love changes the whole look? Whew, first one down.

My pots and pans stay pretty organized. The potatoes and the protein powder just always bugged me. I never really had a place to put them so they always just got shoved down there.  The worst was when I forgot there was a bag way in the back. Know how I found it? I literally thought something had died in my kitchen. Nope, just mushy rotting potatoes. Yeah, not a good place to store them.When you take everything out, it’s the perfect time to crawl on in there and wipe out your cabinets. Mine didn’t look dirty, but my rag said otherwise. I’m super jealous of anyone that has those pull out racks. Lucky ducks.No more potatoes!!!! I also put my electric skillet behind my strainers. I don’t know why I never thought to do that before. Now it makes much more sense. The Konmari process is to hold the object and see if it “sparks joy”. I think that’s a little weird, especially with something like a pan. I just knew that if I didn’t ever use it, it needed to leave. A good example were my 2 stainless skillets. Everything stuck to the bottom and when my husband used them I’d always say, why are you using that horrible skillet? Yet, I still kept them. They’re out of here.

I only have 1.5 sets of dishes. The ones on the middle shelf my husband gave me many years ago. I love them, but they are discontinued and I looked into replacing them. One salad plate alone was something like 30 bucks. I just can’t get rid of them so it’s kind of a puny set. I also love white dishes. They don’t all match, but they are all the same color, so they work for me. I’m not really picky about it. I just got rid of the black bowls, some plastic bowls and moved the popsicle pop things to the cabinet over the fridge because, well, it’s winter.

The easy ones were over. The other ones cabinets items were getting switched around so all the stuff had to come out.

I really like mixing bowls.

I had stuff EVERYWHERE! At this point I kind of just wanted to shove it all back in the cabinets and forget about it, but I’d come this far, I might as well finish. I would put things away, decide I didn’t like it there and move it somewhere else. It was like playing tetris.

Here it is.

Before:

After:The kids lunch stuff and serving dishes are now housed in here.

Before:After:Mixing bowls, baking stuff and plastic food containers.

Before:The thing on the top right is my stand mixer that I absolutely love but am sad because it’s too big to sit on my counter and doesn’t fit under here. It just feels wrong to have it laying on it’s side like that.

After:I moved my chip and bread baskets down here with my small appliances and water bottles.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:The box holds our grilling utensils. I had extra room, so it seemed as good a place as any.

The next pics are of my drawers. There’s no before, because this is pretty much how they are and I figured I’ve shown everything else I might as well include the drawers.

I swear by the Dollar Tree plastic baskets. I use the plastic glasses for when I chop onions. Keeps the tears away.

My Instant Pot and mixer were moved to the top of the fridge. They just seem happier up there rather than jammed into a cabinet.

Here is the final toss pile. Well, except for my cat who was freaked out because he hates change and probably thought we were moving again.

I have 3 BIG categories left: the garage, paperwork and sentimentals. This journey, so far, has been much easier than I thought it was going to be. It takes less time to tidy up everyday. That makes me happy which in turn makes my family happy. Because you know the old saying, if mama ain’t happy, then nobody’s happy.