kitchen organize Archives | Kuball's Khaos

New Pantry Makeover: Transform Your Space with Style and Functionality

Lyn — Sat, 04 Jan 2025 11:01:00 +0000

INSIDE: MY SECOND ATTEMPT AT PANTRY ORGANIZATION. FOLLOW ALONG FOR MY NEW PANTRY MAKEOVER: YOU CAN TRANSFORM YOUR SPACE WITH STYLE AND FUNCTIONALITY You ever develop a plan to stay organized and it falls apart? I put my hands up……………..and they stay there………………………..ALL.THE.TIME!!!!!!!!! I have reorganized my pantry MANY times. Check out this post for the first go round. Disclosure Statement: The links in this post contain affiliate links and I will receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on my link. Those funds help keep this site alive and kickin’ but it doesn’t cost YOU a thing! Click here for the full disclosure. While this worked for a long time, things have changed for us. I think it’s because the children aren’t children anymore. They are teenagers……….they are messy and you can hide NOTHING from them. Here is the current state…..complete chaos!!! As you can see I’ve tried in the past. Evidenced by containers that “sort of” look the same. I decided that I would like uniform looking baskets for a more cohesive pantry. Using my reward points at The Container Store, I was able to get a great deal on these items. I also grabbed small versions of the same found here and small thin bins found here. Don’t forget to share the social love – Come follow us on Pinterest, Facebook, TikTok and Insta. AND now on YouTube!!! As all organizing adventures, start here PURGE Empty all of the contents of your pantry. Take them out of the previous bins. Check dates, expired items should be thrown away. Depending on what you keep in there, you can donate certain things if expired. I recently cleaned out my corner cabinet and found out there are guidelines to expired foods. Check it out here. Throw away anything you won’t use or eat. I found several things I forgot I had – like a pretzel kit from Pampered Chef…..we shall be making this on my next day off!!!! Clean I don’t know if you remember my Laundry Room Makeover, but I strongly dislike the builder’s grade wire shelves. However, I am not trying to replace them in the pantry. Instead, I wiped everything with Mrs. Meyers. I decided there was something I could do to make it a little better. Enter plastic shelf liner to keep it clean AND prevent things from falling through. Organize That’s right, say it with me……My FAVORITE part! I did not take a picture of what the contents of my pantry looked like outside of the pantry……..mainly because I was so overwhelmed I just needed to start somewhere. I removed the boxes that I could – Next, I put like things together on the counter. I realized that I could go back to the original idea (a little) and make each shelf specific to it’s contents. Breakfast, snacks, dinner, etc. The “extras” bin I had previously were a silly idea. I couldn’t see what was in them. Well, guess what? I have 3 bottles of rice vinegar……..I don’t even know why…….. Now with the clear bins, I can see what I have extra of and plan NON-shopping trips much easier. This is where I ended up. Like my new pantry? I’m super excited to see how long we can keep it like this! Happy Organizing,

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How to Deep Clean Your Fridge and Keep it Organized

Lyn — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 01:30:00 +0000

INSIDE: How to deep clean your fridge and keep it organized. Learn effective steps to prevent odors, maximize space, and ensure food safety. Do you ever open your fridge and think “How did we get here?” Once in a Lifetime……Wait that’s the Talking Heads… Chances are if you are having these thoughts, your fridge looks like mine right now…..it’s ok, let’s fix this together. Disclosure Statement: The links in this post contain affiliate links and I will receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on my link. Those funds help keep this site alive and kickin’ but it doesn’t cost YOU a thing! Click here for the full disclosure. I have a side by side fridge/freezer combo. But these hacks would apply to any fridge. Let’s start here REMOVE First things first, remove contents of the fridge and place them on the counter. BUT do not do this until you are ready to move fast. You do not want all your perishable items sitting on your counters for an hour…am I right? Also, we previously discussed A GIANT issue with the fridge – DO NOT keep your milk on the door! It is the warmest part of your fridge. I found 2 of the same types of mustard……this means we didn’t look before we bought one. Oops….but still it’s food waste and I hate it. PURGE Calculate your dates before removing items. Basically you just need to know what today is. If you are throwing something away and you know you need it soon, add it to your “not” shopping list. Maybe it isn’t outdated yet – in this case, mark the container so you don’t forget to remove it when it does expire. How about all the leftovers? Or the half drank bottles of soda? Or the take out that isn’t going to get eaten? CLEAN We are deep cleaning, so if you can remove your drawers or shelves, do it. You want to wash everything in warm, soapy water. Make sure to dry thoroughly. While those are drying, take our favorite Mrs. Meyers and wipe down the sides of the fridge and any shelves you can’t remove. When all of this is done, take a long hard look and decide if you want to add shelf protectors. These can be in the form of pre-cut liners, non-slip liners, or place mats that you cut to fit. I decided not to do this. I would rather just wipe the surfaces down, you do you though! Here is the other thing I’ve added. Baking soda does nothing compared to this gadget. ORGANIZE Y’all know this is my favorite part. I have discovered that my previous methods make no sense anymore. My kids are growing up, by that I mean, they have become experts at making BIGGER messes. I found myself daydreaming about new ways to organize our fridge. I even looked on Pinterest for ideas. What I found was nonsense. Taking milk out of its container to put it in a dispenser? Putting everything in clear containers? I just don’t understand…..sure it looks cool but is it practical? Not in my house. So, I decided to take a note from my pantry organization and go with plastic bins. It looks nice, it’s easy to follow, and easy to find things. I hate to say that any mesh organizers I previously had were stolen relocated by some very cute little people. Honestly, I have no idea where they went. So I was forced to start over, fortunately for me, I received a gift card for The Container Store. I wisely used my gift card to purchase the following: Don’t forget to share the social love – Come follow us on Pinterest, Facebook, TikTok and Insta. Here are the afters The door didn’t change much so I skipped that picture. But as you can see, there is plenty of room and easier to find all the things we use regularly. Organized your fridge? Freezer? Pantry? Let’s see your kitchen reorganize/decluttering projects. Happy Organizing,

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How to Organize a Coffee Cabinet

Lyn — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 10:03:49 +0000

INSIDE : LEARN HOW TO ORGANIZE A COFFEE CABINET SO MORNINGS ARE LESS CHAOTIC AND MORE PRODUCTIVE. Coffee central. The gateway to the morning. The keeper of dreams. The place that no mother, father, or coffee lover can be without! Now if I could just find what I want………. Yesterday was part of my New Year reset and it felt so good to look in the cup cabinet to see exactly what I needed!!! Nothing was going to fall on my head when I reached for it. It feels really great to see progress. So today I tackle how to organize a coffee cabinet! Current State: Ummmmm……..I don’t even know what to say here…we drink a lot of coffee and tea…how does anyone find what they need?!?! 🤷🏻‍♀️ Usually, we push things around to find what we are looking for and it just makes a bigger mess. This MUST stop! Always start here: 1 – Take everything out of the cabinet and PURGE! I found expired tea, protein powder, and trail mix in there…why? Why would trail mix be in there? Probably explains why it wasn’t eaten. There was an abundance of coffee cups. I couldn’t decide which ones I wanted to get rid of so I kept them all for now. But I have a feeling I will change my mind soon………..stay tuned for updates. 2 – Clean the shelves Wiping everything down with Mrs. Meyers made me realize, yet again, that cleaning cabinet shelves needs to be done more than once every 5 years… 3 – Organize – keep like things together While everything was still out on the counter, I gathered all like things together. Coffee and coffee creamer. All the tea. Cups. You get the idea. I decided to put the some of the tea in glass jars and eliminate some of the boxes and clutter. Also, I was able to fit all of our koozies in a glass jar…avoiding drawer clutter! ***UPDATE: I found a better way to store Koozies. Remember when I said “I’m lucky enough to have a beer/soft drink fridge in my garage?” Well, I thought, why wouldn’t the koozie storage be out there too? DUH! I kept a few inside with this and the rest moved outside with this. I decided to organize the K-cup pods with this rotating holder and display them on the counter. Mine was given to me, but this is similar. 4 – Replace your items in an orderly fashion Keep the important things closest to you. Heavy cups need to be on the bottom shelf, not the top. Don’t drink a TON of tea? Put the tea up top. ***Update: I found a WAY better way to organize tea. The glass jars did the trick for a little while but I still had too many in the original boxes. Instead of the glass jars I used this container and what a game changer. Do not put the things that didn’t belong in this cabinet back in there! Since this cabinet is a HUGE part of what I do every day, I found myself storing things in here that just did not make sense. Rubbing alcohol? Why would that be in this cabinet? I had to find it a new home! Finished product: 5 – Decorations Since my whole kitchen is themed around coffee, I decided while I was reorganizing the cabinet, I could give some love to the top too. I removed the wine carafe, washed it, and found it a new home. Gave the top a good dusting and found some ways to re-purpose old decorations. I also found this metal coffee tin online and bought it…..oops! I can’t find the same one to show you – but this is similar. This manual coffee grinder was found in an antique shop somewhere in the mountains of Georgia – but you can have your own here. Now for the before and after: Happy Organizing, Like what you see? Want to start your own journey – click here to get your FREE copy of a monthly cleaning calendar.

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How to Organize a Cup Cabinet

Lyn — Thu, 17 Jan 2019 01:30:17 +0000

INSIDE: Learn how to organize a cup cabinet with simple, effective tips. Maximize space, reduce clutter, and keep your kitchen neat and functional with smart storage solutions. Ever open your cup cabinet and cover your face for fear of what will hit you? Me either, I was asking for a friend…….. Today I decided I would finish up the cabinet organization because it felt so good to get the others done! It was time to organize our cup cabinet! Our cup cabinet makes absolutely no sense and we have things falling on our heads when we get the water bottle we want! Disclosure Statement: The links in this post contain affiliate links and I will receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on my link. Those funds help keep this site alive and kickin’ but it doesn’t cost YOU a thing! Click here for the full disclosure. It’s a hazard really! Part 2 of the problem – the lids are all located in a drawer behind the cabinet…the drawer is not ANY neater than the cabinet. This needs to be fixed ASAP! Figuring out if there were matching cups and lids became my new mission. BUT – as I got started, I panicked a little. When you start with all of these messes, organization seems soooooooo far away! I can do it. And so can YOU! Don’t forget to share the social love – Come follow us on Pinterest, Facebook, TikTok and Insta. AND now on YouTube!!! As always, start here: 1 – PURGE! As always, you should start with removing everything from your cabinet and lay it out so you can see your mess stuff. I matched every cup to its top. Any cup that didn’t have a lid…trash. Any lid that didn’t have a cup….trash. I found 3 warped cups and lid combos….trash. Man, that PURGE felt amazing! Just knowing the pile was smaller made the rest of the process seem less overwhelming. And I decided that – If you like it, you should leave the lids on it… (sing in your best Beyonce voice) Leaving the lids on meant eliminating a messy drawer!!! But will they fit in the cabinet like that? Hmmm, I will have to come up with a solution for that. But I’m getting ahead of myself. 2 – CLEAN Wipe all drawers and cabinets with Mrs. Meyers thus removing all dirt, grime, and crumbs! Organization is one thing, but cleaning is a completely different feeling. Knowing that you have taken the time to clean an area of our home that never gets cleaned should make it feel like its worth the effort. 3 – Organize Keep like things together, in the cup cabinet that meant coffee cups together, travel cups together….and so on. For this to work in my cabinets, I needed to move the shelves. So….I measured the cups for height and moved the shelves accordingly. ****UPDATE 6/2024: As I’m sure all of you have, we have accumulated tall water bottles (AKA Stanley, Juggy, HydroFlask or whatever other trendy things peppy people use to drink water). These do not fit in the cabinets and I’m not moving the shelves again, so I purchased this cool little contraption to put just below this cabinet on the counter top. Here is an updated pic of the cabinet. Happy Organizing,

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Reset Your Life – Kitchen Quick Clean

Lyn — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 16:30:02 +0000

INSIDE: COME RESET YOUR LIFE WITH A KITCHEN QUICK CLEAN AND FEEL BETTER ABOUT DOING SOMETHING EVEN IF IT IS SMALL. Well, nothing can keep me down!!!! And nothing should keep YOU down either. Go light today. Just a quick clean of the kitchen and some decluttering from the countertops. Disclosure Statement: The links in this post contain affiliate links and I will receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on my link. Those funds help keep this site alive and kickin’ but it doesn’t cost YOU a thing! Click here for the full disclosure. Go from counter to counter, put everything back in its actual home, and clean the countertops with Mrs. Meyers. Replace only what should be there. Easy peasy…..but what fun would that be?!? I broke out the bread maker. When I asked for this for my birthday years ago, I had high hopes. Never really panned out. But since I’m sticking to the no fast food & no frozen or ordered out/in pizza….I had to give my kids something fun. So I made pizza dough in the bread maker. The hope is it will be fun to make the pizza and it will turn out yummy. We shall see. I’ll update tomorrow. Be well, Follow along with your own downloaded calendar to reset your life.

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The Ultimate Guide to Organizing Your Family Command Center

Lyn — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 13:10:18 +0000

INSIDE: CHECK OUT HOW WE TRANSFORM THIS AREA OF OUR HOME AND GIVE YOU THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ORGANIZING YOUR FAMILY COMMAND CENTER Welcome to our family command center makeover….Kuball style! In keeping with our organizing journey, take it one space at a time. As you can see from the multiple plastic bins in this drawer, I’ve done this before. I just FAILED to keep up with it. Today, we accept the challenge and take back of our family command center! Disclosure Statement: The links in this post contain affiliate links and I will receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on my link. Those funds help keep this site alive and kickin’ but it doesn’t cost YOU a thing! Click here for the full disclosure. Always start here: Purge! Take everything out the cabinet and drawers. Throw away what you don’t use!!!! I threw away expired meds, almost gone glue bottles, and half decks of cards. If something doesn’t belong here, now is the time to find it’s permanent home. Consolidate Why do I have 3 boxes of bandaids? 12 opened boxes of batteries? Throw them all into one bin. It’s easier to grab them that way anyway. Or use this to keep them organized. Clean Wipe all shelves and the drawer with Mrs. Meyers. It just works so great. I don’t know what it is, and the smell is also calming to me. Reorganize I had some bins but I needed a few more. Here is what I got from The Dollar Tree and Target for our family command center makeover: Supplies: How to use your plastic bins Keep like things together using plastic bins. Put less used things, things you want to keep away from short people, and dangerous items out of reach!! Use bins to separate like this: Once you have your bins filled with your command center necessities, you can start to put them back into your cabinet and drawer. How to use your Fold ‘n File Since the purpose of this is to keep you organized, it helps to know what you NEED to organize. Use this for: I want to point out that there is NO mail sorter in this command station. I sort the mail as it comes in. We don’t need to hang on to things we don’t need and mail is part of that process. If it’s a bill, that I have to pay with paper, then I pay it immediately. WHY? Because I will forget to pay it if I don’t do it now. How to use your book holder The next step in our family command center makeover was finding an answer to our weekly dilemma regarding library books. Normally, the library books pile up on counter or get lost in their rooms. We spend weeks looking for them OR we start looking for them when we get a note from the librarian saying the books were never returned. Using these book holders from The Dollar Tree, we fix our problem and now each kid as a place to put their books. ***Update – during COVID these were used to hold their electronics. AND now they put papers they want US to see. How to use your weekly and monthly calendars If you have room to have these on the same wall as your family command center, more power to you! Our house does not have a great place to put all of these things on one wall, so we use our kitchen in several different spots. The main command center is to the right of the fridge, so it stands to reason that our calendars could go on the fridge. Plus……..we actually look at them because they are placed there. Weekly calendar dry erase board I suggest this for several reasons: Each family member gets their initial – followed by the activity of the day. You can also use a different color for each family member. Then we add each family member’s extracurricular stuff, work schedules, appointments, and daily school specials. Monthly calendar This is one similar to the one I have but I found mine in Bullseye’s Playground for $1, it’s worth looking….. We use this calendar to plan our meals. We don’t do anything fancy for meal planning. Kinda just pick a meal and go for it. Actually, I let the kids pick a meal each week, I help them with a few choices but rather than arguing every night….I let them pick and then I don’t have to think about what to make every night. This completes our family command center makeover. Before and Afters: I didn’t do this in a day. It took time, over the course of a few weeks, but as each piece came together, it motivated me to keep going. Do you have a spot that needs a makeover but you are overwhelmed by where you should start? Let’s talk it out. Comment below and let us help you! Happy Organizing,

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How to Organize Your Pantry

Lyn — Sun, 26 Aug 2018 20:03:40 +0000

INSIDE : HOW TO ORGANIZE YOUR PANTRY TO MANAGE YOUR ORGANIZED CHAOS When my kids get home from school, I have flashbacks from Billy Madison, when he and the housekeeper have their moment. “Just give me the SNACK-PACK!” My pantry seems to be the center of the universe sometimes. And the current condition of mine is not functional, so I decided a pantry organization makeover was needed. Disclosure Statement: The links in this post contain affiliate links and I will receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on my link. Those funds help keep this site alive and kickin’ but it doesn’t cost YOU a thing! Click here for the full disclosure. What happens when a certain 18 year old gets hungry or when 2 little people get home from school and they are “starving” but dinner isn’t ready immediately? Let them starve? Of course we are…..because waiting 15 minutes for dinner would be like pure torture. Alas, if I let them have a “healthy” snack before dinner, I fight less battles surrounding dinner. So here is the ONLY rule: Before we moving onto the pantry…….let’s share the social love – Come follow us on Pinterest, Facebook, TikTok and Insta. I decided that moving things out of reach would help keep the kids in check and me more organized. Like all good organization makeovers, this one started with removing all items from the pantry. This allowed me to group like things together better. Shelf #1 – Extras Extra items and oils are not used every meal, so keeping them out of the way allows for more important things to remain at eye level. Once I removed everything, and saw what I had, I decided the items needed to be corralled. So I found these cute (and cheap) bins on Amazon. AND since I got a Cricut for Christmas, I figured I could label them with fancy fonts and it would perk up the pantry…sounds good right? Shelf #2 – Breakfast only It lets the kids know what they can eat for breakfast or NOT. This also allows me to reach to the shelf where my NOT so used Shakeology mixes are…..and maybe use them for once! Again, I moved everything and decided that I needed something else….but what? Open boxes of everything – cereal, poptarts, pancake mix – I needed air tight containers! YYYAAAAAASSSSS!!!!! I went to Amazon – in hindsight I should have ordered a HUGE bundle, but I didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on this. So I opted for containers similar to this. You might be wondering where all the other cereal went….well, since no one was eating it AND January is FOOD DONATION month, I added the cereal to the donation box. Shelf #3 – Dinner items Taking a quick glance at this shelf lets me know if I have pasta, taco shells, or rice. Obviously, we eat a lot of macaroni and cheese around here. Using those plastic containers, I put the lentils, quinoa, and barley in them. They come in plastic bags that don’t reseal very well. I’m sure I could have put the rice into a container, but I’m not sure if I want to yet. Shelf #4 – Lunch snacks We do a lot of home lunches (school lunch is not very popular with a certain picky eater) so we need plenty of lunch snacks. I take the chips out of the bag they come in and place them in a Thirty One Your Way Rectangle. I purchase large boxes of Goldfish, since it is a relatively non-messy snack. Instead of leaving it in the giant box, I measure 1/2 cup of Goldfish, place them in snack size Ziploc bags, and we keep snacking under control. It makes lots of snack bags….PORTION control! Shelf #5 – Random snacks I have had these bins from Target for a long time but I decided to jazz them up with my new Cricut. They are perfect for popcorn, Ramen, and SNACK-PACKS!!! I also found a bunch of crackers down there, since I know we won’t eat all of them, I added them to the donate box. And I moved all my extra aluminum foil, plastic wrap, and parchment paper to this shelf. I snuck them behind the pretty bins and hopefully I will remember they are there! The bottom of the pantry holds my air fryer, watering can, and this cute little bin for potatoes. I think we will find out things much better now! The key is making a system that works and makes sense to you and your family. What do you need help organizing? How have you organized your pantry? Happy Organizing,

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