Week 4 - Fridge & Freezer

A little late but none the less, here are my results from the Week 4 challenge. Because of my previous de-cluttering & organizing efforts I didn't have to do anything with our small chest freezer (plus its WAY too full of food right now). When DH has the PC fixed I'll post those pics, but basically I had taken everything out & then fitted 3 sturdy sm/med boxes into the freezer. 2 stay on the bottom & 1 rests on top of the bottom 2. I then divided all the meat into my new Chicken, Beef & Pork boxes. The rest of the food was organized into catagories - the pizzas stacked vertical on the bottom, all freezer suppers put into the hanging basket etc. (I didn't defrost the freezer then but need to do that reeeally soon). At the same time I had organized the up & downstairs freezers. So anyway back to Week 2, the fridge freezers got a quick once over & were done.

I use a thick plastic bin to hold all the sausages, hot dogs etc & the bottom drawers holds veggies on the right & fruit on the left. There is also a stack of freezer meals behind the yellow bucket that just don't fit in the chest freezer right now. The door holds all the juice cans & freezer mugs. The downstairs fridge freezer has all the bread & when there's room some freezer meals.

The fridge got a thorough cleaning & purging. I put some some condiments etc that are rarely used in the downstairs fridge. We go thru an amazing amount of yogurt, cheese strings etc & they are usually strewn ALL over the fridge! After putting boxes into my freezer I realized I could put bins into my fridge! Voila! There is room in the bins for about 1 week worth of each & the rest is kept in the downstairs fridge. I will also be labeling the door bins "jams/jellies", "sandwhich stuff"," dressings" to help the rest of my family keep all the various bottles & jars in approx the right place!

Well, that is it for Week 4 until the PC is up & running & then I'll insert the Before pics for you to gasp at!

Week 2 FINISHED!!

This was a very crazy but also very satisfying week. I finished 1 drawer early in the week & then nothing til towards & through-out the weekend, but wow did we (the whole family was a big help!) ever accomplish a LOT! I posted the before pics (click here) on Friday, excellent motivation btw, so now here's the after pics:

This, of course, is our "junk drawer" & it was probably the hardest to finish with all it's little bits & pieces! I had DS#1 take everything out & vacuum the drawer. Then we sorted it all in related piles, turfed the actual junk & viola! 

Next is the lazy susan baking cupboard. This was truly a frightful mess as we'd been simply chucking stuff in & quickly closing the drawer! While I was sorting & purging, my DH was repairing the lazy susan (she had become a little too lazy). I had heavy stuff that needed to go elsewhere plus lots of glass jars taking up way too much room, so I put the brown sugar & icing sugar into iceream buckets & into another cupboard, trading spots with the lighter cake decorating supplies. Then I put the baking powder, soda, salt, corn starch etc into stacking plastic containers I already had on hand & take much less space (they are just the ziploc type so I may buy some tupperware type to give a better seal).

This is the kid's craft/colouring drawer. When we built our kitchen I made sure to have enough drawers to have things like this handy in the kitchen. It really just needed a good clean & re-straightening with a touch of purging. The crayons, markers & colouring books get used the most so I stacked the colouring books at the front & used the 3 sections of the carry caddy for crayons, makers & pencil crayons. Perfect for little hands!

The spice drawer was the 1st drawer I tackled this week & I was beyond thrilled with the results (technically this should have been in next week's assignment, but I got too excited to wait!). The spices were originally in with the cooking utensils in the drawer pictured below. I switched things up & put the spices in a smaller drawer by themselves, put all the bagged spices into lrg baby food jars, used a shoebox to corral them, gave away some stuff I never use & chucked the yuckies!

Now that the cooking utensils had a drawer to themselves I had the perfect spot for my potholders etc. I made a utensil organizer by cutting the sides off cereal boxes & taping them together.

Hopefully this will inspire some kitchen purging, de-cluttering & organizing in other kitchen! :) And now onto Week 3 - Pantry, Spices & Food Storage