Everything but the kitchen sink

I wanted to say thanks to everyone for their support after losing my friend Holland last week. We had a three-day weekend in honor of Presidents' day this week and it seemed like a good way to keep going with life and honor Holland's spirit of joie de vivre was to do something fun. In my case, that was some decluttering!

It's been a long time since I've decluttered or organized anything so I wanted to start with something small that would be a quick and easy project to finish. I hadn't taken a look at the cabinet under the kitchen sink since we moved in last year. It's become a bit of a dumping ground.

Everything squeezed in. Mostly.

Everything on the floor.

It amounted to: a wire basket drawer, a sink plunger, several boxes of trash bags, three vases, two containers of detergent, the ingredients for more detergent, a caulking fun, a paper towel holder, a dustpan, and baby oil for the cabinets (works like a charm!).

I recycled the metal basket drawer that was half rusted. I removed the metal tracks that were screwed into the bottom of the cabinet so now we can actually crawl underneath the sink without hunks of metal digging into our backs when we have to change the filter or fix the disposal. It opened up a huge amount of room. I hung the little dust pan up inside the door. Then I found these.

Granite cleaners and leather cleaners. Shame we don't have a granite countertop OR leather furniture!

All of those were freebies. I took them into work and gave them away. People snapped them up. I don't even know how I ended up with them! Does that ever happen to you? Stuff just sneaks into your house?

Okay, so it doesn't look much better with everything back in. But at least there's a little space and I was able to put a liner down to keep any spills from ruining the cabinet.

I'm happy. Now, to figure out how to keep it this way! How do you keep everything under your sink from getting disorganized? What would you have kept or trashed that I didn't?

Kitchen kapers

No, not the store. Though I suppose this is where part of my problems began.


Why do we have so much trouble with kitchen clutter? My guess is that 1.) women really *are* genetically programmed to want to feed our families and 2.) stores like Bed Bath and Beyond are house porn. You wish your house was like theirs. Or not. 3.) Cabinets that are taller than most humans are miniature black holes, sucking up small cookware items and never coughing them up again.


What surprises me most about this collection is how much stuff wandered into my kitchen as gifts. How do you keep this from happening?


Anyways, hi ho, hi ho, it's off to the thrift shop we go:

#92-96: Five single-serve corningware dishes. I love small things and these were miniatures of my mom's baking dishes. So of course I had to buy them. Shame I already had four regular sized Corningware dishes in exactly the same pattern. $25.	#97: A cheese dome. I used to have visions of having a kitchen countertop that looked like a counterop in a diner, full of lots of cute pastries under glass. Like artwork. Then I realized I want to eat the pastries, not look at them. Got this in the "free box" in our old apartment building.
#98: A water bottle I ruined by leaving milk in it for an embarassingly long amount of time. $8. Trashed.	#99: A tea infuser that came with a mug that I happen to love. I would love the infuser if it actually worked. $0.
#100! A coffee measuring spoon. I don't drink coffee, but when I got this I was in my bulimic "I will only have exactly 1.5 tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk in my tea each morning" moods. No restricting now. Not to mention, I hate coffee. Also $8.	#101: A spare broiler pan. No idea how we got this. Probably was a gift.
#102: A silver-plated coaster from Grandmom. Because she can't bear to see anything leave the family.	#103: OMG I LOVE miniature things. Especially mini jam jars. But I don't have any use for it, so it goes in the recycling.
#104: A lunch bag. Another "gift" from a vendor at the last place I worked. I hate promo swag. I really do.	#105: Empty tea tin from Harrods.
#106: A cocktail shaker. Not like we make cocktails. Came with the margarita we ordered.	#107: A mini crock pot. A bonus that came with the hubs's crock pot. Not exactly a bonus for us.
#108: A baking rack. No idea how we got it or how much it cost.	#109-112: Burner inserts. They helped keep our old stove clean but they don't fit on our current one. $20
#113: A water filter from our old faucet. Doesn't fit on our current one.We did use it, so I suppose it wasn't a waste.	#114: Camping utensils, likely stolen from my sister. Back to her they go.



That's $61 wasted on kitchen stuff. I'm actually surprised it wasn't higher. Good thing, since I'm up to $1202 wasted on junk. Argh.