Kitchen magic!

I decided to work on the kitchen yesterday when the kids were out. Dh helped me (I totally need the moral support for stuff like this). We pulled out all the clutter in 3 cabinets and then sorted them into piles. Stuff that's used regularly (once a month or more) stayed in the kitchen. Stuff used a few times a year went to a shelf in the basement. The third pile was stuff that could go.

14 items gone today and yesterday :D It may not be a lot in numbers, but it was a lot in terms of space.

Ok, forgive me, but after taking this picture I decided to keep one thing. The bag of cardboard, disposable popcorn boxes on the lower left hand. My daughter likes to play that she's at the movies and I thought she'd get a kick out of these. I forgot we even had them til I pulled them out of that cabinet!

So, other than that, here's what's in the first picture. 1 green flour sifter, 1 large rubbermaid storage container, two rubbermaid juice containers, 1 splatter guard (the big silver circle - you're supposed to put that on top of the frying pan to stop splatters - I guess I don't fry that much), 1 angel food cake pan (I don't like angel food cake), 1 ceramic Peter Rabbit themed plate, 1 chestnut roaster (the ceramic pot in the front), one opened box of green tea bags and finally, one of those vacuum sealers for food and two rolls of bags to go with it.

The chestnut roaster we gave FIL for a Christmas present one year. When he died, MIL gave it back to us. I like chestnuts but no one else here does and they always seem to be too much work to bother so I got rid of it. For the one time every other year I make chestnuts I can do it without the roaster.

The food saver MIL gave us. It seems like a nice idea but we just couldn't get the hang of it. Half the time we didn't get the bags sealed properly and then when we did, they sat in the freezer unused because we forgot about them. I guess we're not freezer cooking people. Oh, and technically the food saver was not from the kitchen but from the basement. We grabbed it when we were putting away the "few times a year" kitchen stuff.


The green tea I have because my mom likes it, I have another box so there was no reason to have two since I don't drink it much myself (I mostly drink herbal of which I have plenty). I gave it to her in the (not pictured but part of the count!) thermal insulated grocery bag she gave me a year or so ago. It's a good idea, but I never remember to use it and it was just taking up space. The grocery bag was also not techincally a kitchen item. It was hanging on a hook in the basement stairwell (also referred to as our "pantry" because we have a shelf of food hanging on the door).

This soup mug went too. We got it as part of a gift set years ago. Two mugs and some soup mixes. Mug #2 broke a long time ago so this is all that's left. I haven't actually used this in years and it just had random bits of little junk in it. It went to the same place that all the other kitchen items went. Freecycle! One person picked the whole lot up AND took it off my front porch maybe 2 hours after I *posted* the stuff! Cool!

Here's the best part. We have one of those George Foreman type grills (ours is Hamilton Beach though). We use it once a week to grill dh's chicken for lunches. The rest of the week it just sits unused on top of the dishwasher (a portable one that we have to pull across the kitchen). This evening, after cleaning the grill, I took a look at it, took a look at my newly spacious cabinets and realized that there was room to put the grill *away*. I seriously never even thought of doing that before. Wow. What a concept! So I stuck it in the cabinet and it really does make a difference not to have a big black appliance sitting out on top of the dishwasher.

I'm looking forward to next weekend when we can work on the rest of the cabinets. Who knows? Maybe I'll even get the entire kitchen culled and organized! Nah, I'd probably die of shock ;)


And for the final coolness - I just updated my count and I've passed 500 items! Whoo hoo! Where's my party hat?