A Bunch of Burts

This week is a themed edition of Works-For-Me-Wednesday — Your Organized Kitchen!
Hopefully this is not an oxymoron as it usually is at my house.

Don’t get me wrong, I love an organized kitchen. I cook food and bake treats so much more efficiently when the kitchen is cleaned up and put away. Unfortunately that is not always the way it is.
Case in point, on my counter as I type, I can see swim goggles, a pair of socks (clean ones!), sunscreen, a Popular Science magazine, recycling waiting to be put in the receptacle, my Thai Sunday School book I need to be studying, and of course a variety of dishes that somehow will not move themselves to the sink.

So I am looking for some great ideas from all of you!

As for what works for me, one of the best things I have done for kitchen organization and appropriation of child participation is something I already posted about here. Basically it is moving dishes down to a level where the kids can be responsible for putting them away and getting them out without the help of Mom, Dad, a chair, the counter or the dust-pan. (oops mom, dropped one!).

Living in the Northern US, I used to love having my garbage under the kitchen sink. Soooo convenient for tossing food scraps or other wet garbage. Unfortunately, we cannot do that here or we would be overrun with cockroaches. So it lives beside the stove. Not the best arrangement, but better than opening cupboard doors to a host of new ‘neighbors’.

We do happen to have clear glass cupboard door on our uppers here, and that has dramatically increased my desire to keep those cupboards organized and tidy. I guess that tip only helps if you are wanting to remodel as well as organize your kitchen.

I have also found that small, dollar store style baskets are wonderful for corralling the small items in the kitchen drawers, so you do not have to hunt them down. I have my measuring cups and spoons in a basket, food colorings and flavorings in one, seasoning packets and spices in one, and of course the kitchen junk drawer has several. They are clear identifiers of where things go, and you can pull the whole thing out if you need it for easy access and replacement.

My last, and probably already known by you tip for kitchen organization is to keep the counters clear. Large bulky appliances, unless used every day should live somewhere other than your counter. There is something about clean, open spaces that makes the kitchen feel organized and ready for use.

Looking forward to seeing your suggestions, so I’ll meet you at Shannon’s.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 at 2:56 am and is filed under wfmw. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.