4 Tips to organize small kitchen cabinets

A few weeks ago I shared how I organized our small collection of dinnerware.

Inside you can see  one of the items that has helped us stay organized with such a small amount of space:

1. Additional cupboard shelves

As you can see, I have purchased small shelves to give us more usable space. What´s great about them is that they are easily “moved around” and they assist in avoiding piling things on top of each other (which usually translates into a disaster zone sooner or later).

In our remaining cupboards I have used these same shelves. I used one for our pantry and baking supply cupboard and another one for our spice and breakfast cabinet.

2. Lunchmeat containers

These I actually discovered by accident. I got one on sale for lunchmeat and disvocered right away that they were far too large for our tiny refrigerator (meaning I couldn´t use them for their intended purpose).

At first I planned on returning them, but then I had a different idea. 

Instead of using them for the lunch meat and cheese, I simply added them to my baking supply cupboard and added oats, corn flour, soup noodles, farina and sweet rice to the different compartments. 

As it turns out, this idea was great. Not only does it look much more organized inside the cupboard, but this is actually very space saving. Each compartment can be accessed very easily and its contents are easily visible.

Once I discovered how well this worked, I went back the next week and got one more box for my breakfast things. I love to eat  homemade nut butters with fruit and therefore usually have an assortment of nut flours, nuts and seeds on hand.

3. Cheap organizers:

When moving into this apartment I purchased 2 small trays/organizers for 99 cents each.

The first one holds our spices (due to lack of space we only keep the bare necessities on hand) and another one for baking powder, yeast and vanilla sugar (in Germany those come in small packages). Again, we keep a minimum at hand.

However due to these trays sliding out easily I can assess in a second if anything is needed and what I should avoid buying at that time.

4. Large Containers for Pantry Staples

Some pantry staples come in larger quantities, such as flours, sugar, pasta and rice. For those I have purchased a couple of larger containers. Again, everything becomes easily visible and also easily accessible.

I have actually used the containers in the back for both – flours and homemade cake and pancake mixes – depending on what I have been baking.

Our cupboards might not be the prettiest cupboards in the world, but they do serve us well and we were able to keep them pretty organized.

For us, the often-cited keys to organized cupboards are working very well. By keeping everything easily accessible, by giving everything its own place and by reducing the amount of items in pantry and cupboards, keeping them organized turned out to be rather easy.

Organized kitchen cabinets

This weekend has been quite productive so far. I got this year´s supplies for the veggie garden, I cleaned, built a space ship with our son, and relaxed a lot.

I also took some time this morning to re-organize our cupboards. Actually, our 1 cupboard (since that´s how many we have available for our cups, water glasses, cereal bowls and plates).

Here is what I worked with:

Luckily, that´s also all we have with regards to dishes.

Step 1)

Remove everything from the cupboard.

Step 2)

Re-assess and purge. I didn´t purge anything because I don´t have much anyway.

Step 3)

Put everything back into the cupboards in a way that makes sense.

Step 4) 

After some time, re-assess if this is really working.

By the way, it is possible to create a nice dinner table with such few dishes

The storage room is pretty much done!

 Remember this pretty storage room with lots of un-used potential?



Up until this Saturday it sported all but two tiny shelves and an assortment of hooks on the wall.
Most of our stuff was placed on the floor wherever we had a spot. One of the shelves housed a ton of boxes (from the coffee maker, the waffle cooker, and our dishes). And the other one contained our cleaning supplies and some other stuff.

Our paper recycling consisted of an old moving box. Talking of which, I already moved all the other  boxes down into the basement storage room.

In order to make this place useful I went through several steps:

1. Function: I thought about how this room was going to be used and decided on the following functions:

• Recyling Area
• Cleaning Supply Storage
• Suitcase Storage (I don´t want to put those into the dungeon-like basement)
• Tool Storage
• Housing for our Vacuum Cleaner plus attachments and filters
• Pantry and miscellaneous Household Items
• and the list might get longer ….

2. Brainstorm Storage: I researched different types of shelving, storage containers and possible layouts for how everything was going to be put together. I also thought about the size of container I would need for each category of items.

3. Budget: I set a budget for this project and researched prices in order to decide on a final system.

4. Purchase and Assembly: Once I had brought everything home, the fun part started.
Assembling everything.



Since we are only renting and did not want to install anything permanent I purchased one of those black shelving units that can be put toghether very easily. I also got an assortment of purple and lime green containers.


























I removed everything from our storage room, and went to town filling each canister with its intended items.


5. Love the results: Things are looking much better already.



Now the bottom container holds a few tools and cords, the next one up is used as paper recycling bin (that can be brought down to the garbage easily thanks to its handles). The medium sized purple containers hold glass recycables and plastic bottles respectively. Finally, I placed cleaning supplies and cleaning cloths in the larger green bin and our vacuum cleaner supplies in the smaller one.
On the other side, I used the top shelf for luggage bags and the one below for my grocery bags.



As you can see, there is still some space to add another shelf if needed (such as for additional kitchen supplies).

6. Reevaluate after some time: For now I have to wait and see how this will turn out, but re-evaluating a project after some time always helps.

Before (left side) & After (right side): 

Take Care!

Carina 

Post linked up here:
- Thrifty Decor Chick (Before and After Party January)

Cheap scarf storage solution

 Do you also have that problem where your scarfs just fly around everywhere? No matter where you put them, they always end up in the way. Finding a place for my scarfs has long been on my to-do-list. I wanted a way that made them very easily accesible, yet still out of the way.

The other day while walking through the stores I found the solution: 

There you can see them peeking from behind the wardrobe.



I got this little kitchen helper with hooks for spoons and the like at the Euro-Store (Dollar Store) and knew I had found just what I needed.
I attached it to the hidden side of our wardrobe. That way you can´t see the scarfs from most angles in the room, and they can be stored away neatly.



I found this among the kitchen supplies but it is just perfect to put away scarfs.



Do you have smart ideas for organizing your scarfs?

Linked up here:
- Tuesday´s Treasures

No space, no Christmas? - Kein Platz, kein Weihnachten?

Yep, that´s our situation at the moment. We are still in a very small space and there is simply no room to put a tree anywhere. So what´s an Ikea-loving girl to do in such a problematic moment?

Ja, das ist unsere momentane Situtation. Wir leben immer noch auf sehr beengtem Raum und haben ganz einfach keinen Platz für einen Weihnachtsbaum. Was würde ein Ikea-Narr in dieser Situtation machen?

Well, I went to Ikea. As simple as that. Not exactly with the goal to find a solution for my little dilemma, but almost on the way out, there was all the Christmas-stuff on display.

Ganz einfach. Zu Ikea fahren. Natürlich sind wir aus anderen Gründen dort hin gefahren und fast am Ende unseres Rundgangs waren alle Weihnachtssachen ausgestellt.

After going through all the different displays longing for my own tree, I couldn´t believe my eyes when I stumbled upon this:

Nachdem ich mir sehnsüchtig all die Weihnachtsdekorationen angeschaut hatte, konnte ich meinen Augen nicht glauben als ich dies hier entdeckte:

Source

This miny-tree is only about 20 inches tall (56cm) and very narrow. And it fits. Even on a tiny table or a small space on a sideboard or sidetable. To top things of, it was only EUR 12.99 (about 16 USD?).

Dieser Minibaum ist nur etwa 56cm hoch und sehr schmal. Und er passt sogar auf einen kleinen Tisch.

I don´t have to mention that I was thrilled, or do I?

Ich muss nicht schreiben wie sehr ich mich grfreut habe, oder?

Anyhow, I grabbed one of the Feijka-trees (that´s their name), a package with various small, red ornaments and a package with a golden pearl ribbon.

Kurzentschlossen habe ich mir also einen der sogenannten Feijka-Bäume geschnappt, sowie eine kleine Schachtel mit verschiedenen, roten Ornamenten und einer goldfarbenden Perlenkette.

Once home, my son and I started decorating our table top tree:

Sobald wir zu Hause waren, haben mein Sohn und ich angefangen den Baum zu dekorieren.

Maybe, I should say that I tried to decorate and my son ripped everything apart. After some fun and some struggle, we had the tree set up.

Vielleicht sollte ich besser sagen, dass ich versuchte den Baum zu dekorieren, während er alles immer wieder auseinander nahm. Nach einigem Spass und einigem Ärger war der Baum dann doch endlich fertig.

I like how this small tree already changed the flair of an entire (even if small) space.

Mir gefällt besonders gut, wie das ganze Ambiente eines kleinen Raumes mit einem kleinen Weihnachtsbaum geändert werden kann.

The golden pearl ribbon was a little too long for the entire tree, so I just wrapped the end around the tree stump in the planter. That way, I was able to cover up the fake "potting mix" and I added a little more bling to the tree:

Da die Goldkette ein bischen zu lang für den kleinen Baum war, entschied ich mich diese einfach ein paar mal um den "Baumstamm" zu wickeln und die falsche Erde damit abzudecken:
 

Can you see the pearls peeking through?

Hier kann man die Perlen im Topf sehen.

Maybe, I´ll add a pot around the base, or maybe a scarf or something like that.  I´ll see if I find something cheap in the next couple of days.

Vielleicht hole ich noch einen Blumentopf dazu oder benutze einen Schal um den Untertopf zu verschönern. Mal sehen, ob ich hierzu noch was Schönes finde in den nächsten paar Tagen.

Last year, my tree looked like this by the way:

Letztes Jahr sah unser Baum übrigends so aus:

 
Blue, silver and teal. I brought the little angel with me and it is also on this years tree.

Blau, silber und türkis. Den kleinen Engel habe ich mit nach Deutschland gebracht und er hängt auch dieses Jahr wieder am Baum.


Linked up here:
- Frugal Friday
- Show and Share Day 
- Christmas Tree Party