Organized Kitchen Archives - Blue i Style

Simple Pantry Organization Hacks

blueistyle — Fri, 26 Apr 2019 06:42:00 +0000

A disorganized home can create unnecessary stress. This is especially true when it comes to your pantry because it’s a space you use multiple times a day, every day!

Trying to organize a pantry can feel overwhelming and frustrating because its contents change so frequently. It’s easy enough to line things up neatly on the shelves, but the real challenge is creating an organized pantry system that your whole family can keep up with so you won’t find yourself rearranging things again and again.

Recently, I got a call from a family that was struggling with their disorganized pantry. I stopped by to see the space for myself. At more than 6 feet wide, with deep, adjustable shelves, this pantry had lots of space for everything… but finding anything on all those shelves was another story altogether.

The family already intended to swap out their frosted glass double doors for solid wood doors, and I helped them create a plan to utilize the space on the back of the doors for additional storage. After relocating all of their spices, as well as many bottles, jars, and even some snacks to the back of the new pantry doors, I was ready to tackle the shelves.

Initially, the family thought they wanted to replace the shelving with a custom pantry system. The quote came back at $5,000 and proposed mostly new adjustable shelves with the addition of a few drawers. A few other optional bells and whistles would have increased the price further.

We determined there was no reason to rip out the existing shelving just to replace it with more shelving, and I assured the family that bins on the shelves could easily provide the same function as built in drawers for a fraction of the cost.

HOW TO ORGANIZE PANTRY SHELVES

In order to best utilize all the shelf space in this pantry, and to create a system that will be easy for the family to maintain, I followed the same five step pantry organizing process that I used in my own pantry:

Start with a Blank Slate
Sort, Categorize, and Form a Plan
Choose Appropriate Containers
Use Every Available Space
Add Labels, But Keep it Durable and Flexible

You can read all the details of this five step pantry organizing process, and gets lots of tips for organizing a small reach-in pantry in my prior post. I won’t restate all of that detail here – instead I want to share some specific pantry organizing hacks that helped me create efficient systems in this pantry.

This post contains some affiliate links. If you purchase something I recommend, you’ll pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission.

SHOP THIS ORGANIZED PANTRY

BINS ON SHELVES CAN PROVIDE THE SAME FUNCTION AS DRAWERS

The homeowner really liked the idea of a custom pantry system with some drawers, but since the price was not right, I assured her that we could get the same function by using bins on the existing shelves. In fact, I’d argue that in many ways bins are superior to drawers.

Like drawers, bins make it easy to corral like items, but bins actually more flexible because they aren’t height constrained. Some items might be too tall for drawers, but bins allow you to contain taller items because they can sit above the top of the bin.

For this pantry, I used a combination of three different sizes of translucent plastic storage bins with handles, which are really affordable, and can be purchased in cases of 12 at a discounted price.

With custom pantry systems, you typically have to choose between solid drawers or wire basket-style drawers. Solid drawers don’t give you a good view of what’s inside, and wire basket drawers allow smaller items to fall through. With bins, you can choose a solid or translucent style, depending on the look you prefer, but no matter the style bins are always easy to lift off of the shelves to see all of the contents {ensuring that nothing gets lost and forgotten}.

Honestly, if I could design my own custom pantry, I’d opt for pull out shelves with bins over drawers any day of the week.

TRANSFER FOOD ITEMS FROM BAGS TO STACKING CANISTERS

I just sung the praises of storage bins, but keep in mind that bins aren’t right for everything. This family originally had a basket filled with bags of nuts, but many of the bags were torn and even with clips on the bags, nuts were spilling everywhere. I transfer the nuts to appropriately-sized canisters, based on the quantities the family typically buys.

I chose affordable rectangular, stacking canisters that come in three different sizes. These silicone-sealed, airtight canisters will keep the nuts fresh much longer. The ability to stack the canisters is great for space saving, and the family will know at a glance when it’s time to restock.

ADD DURABLE, ERASABLE LABELS IN THE PANTRY

Once I had all the bins and canisters filled up, I need to label them. I know this isn’t news to any of you – but I love to label! Labeling is so important, especially in spaces – like the pantry – that are used by more than one person. Labels ensure that everyone can quickly find what they need and that things get put back in the right place.

As important as labels are, it’s also important that you keep them both durable and flexibility. The contents of any of these bins or canisters may change over time. Dry erase or chalk maker labels are popular for the flexibility they provide, and I’ve used them myself many times. But I’ve discovered their downfall – they wipe off far to easily, leaving you guessing about the contents.

I recently discovered an alternative that sounded to good to be true, but after testing them for the past couple of months, I’m in love!

Unlike dry erase markers or chalk markers, these permanent marker labels won’t smear or wipe away no matter how many times they are handled. These erasable labels from come in numerous sizes and the package includes a permanent marker and a white eraser. When you’re ready, you can erase them clean and then write again.

Although these erasable labels come with a marker, they claim to work with any permanent marker. I wanted to test them with a Sharpie, but I was very skeptical that you could ever erase a Sharpie. Sure enough, that little eraser is like magic. After the first pass with the eraser you can see a faint shadow of the writing, but after a second pass, the labels look like new and are ready to be written on again and again.

CHALKBOARD LABELS ON PANTRY SHELVES

How fun are these chalkboard labeled shelves?! The homeowner had previously painted the front of the shelves with chalkboard paint, so all I had to do was relabel them correspond with the new organization.

It might seem redundant to have labels on the shelves and on the bins, but doing so will ensure that when the bins are removed from the shelves, they always make it back to the same place. For a busy family, every extra cue will help keep the pantry organized for a long time to come.

HOW TO ORGANIZE ZIPLOC BAGS, WRAPS, AND FOIL ON PANTRY SHELVES

Many Ziploc bag, plastic wrap, and foil boxes are just a bit too tall for standard cabinet drawers, but they can also be hard to store efficiently on a shelf. If you sit just sit the boxes on a shelf, it’s not an efficient use of the vertical space, but if you stack them on top of each other, it’s hard to get what you need and keep it organized. I came up with a creative, simple solution…

Two small multi-purpose bins turned on their side, and stacked perfectly fit all the boxes of plastic wrap, aluminum foil, and wax paper. Each can be easily pulled out, used, and put back in place without disturbing the others. With the height of the shelf, the homeowners could easily add one more small multi-purpose bins for a third row if needed.

For the taller boxes of bags – including Ziploc storage bags, sandwich bags, and trash bags, I used a medium multi-purpose bin. By placing some inside the bin, and others on top of the bin, I was again able to create two convenient rows of storage on this shelf.

ADJUSTABLE, 3-TIERED SHELVES FOR CANNED FOOD

There are lots of options for organizing canned food, and which solution is right really depends on the quantities you keep in your pantry. Since we have a fairly small pantry, gravity-feed can racks work great for my family.

These gravity-feed racks work well when you tend to purchase multiple cans of each type of food, so that you can store the extras behind the front can. My clients, on the other hand, had a much wider variety of canned food, so gravity-feed racks would have made it hard for them to see everything. Additionally, my client had numerous cans with larger diameters that wouldn’t have fit well on gravity-feed racks.

Instead, I selected two expanding, three-tiered shelves to organize all of the canned goods. In addition to the three plastic tiers, the shelf surface creates a fourth tier for even more storage. Raising the cans up makes it easier to see each can and find things at the back.

These shelves expand from 13″-25″, allowing two units to fill the full width of my client’s wide shelves. Each tier is deep enough to accommodates larger cans and jars.

USE DIVIDED TURNTABLES

I’ve been singing the praises of divided turntables a lot lately, especially after using them to organize under my bathroom sink. It turns out they are also perfect for the pantry. The 4.5″ high sides on these turntables are tall enough to keep things neatly contained, but perfectly in view.

The options of what you can organize in these divided turntables are endless, but in this pantry, I used them to organized different varieties of granola / health bars, as well as tubes of drink mixes.

SPICE RACKS CAN DOUBLE AS SNACK STORAGE

The new spice racks on the inside of the wood French doors provide tons of extra storage. I designed the the back-of-door shelves in various depths to accommodate a wide range of spices and condiments. It turns out that these back of door spice racks are also ideal for storing grab-and-go items for quick lunch packing and after school snacking.

When I first tried putting some of these items in the spice racks, they slid right through. I discovered some clear “deep drawer bins” that fit perfectly in this rack, and keep the snack contents neatly in place.

PANTRY FILE BOX FOR APPLIANCE INSTRUCTIONS

Finally, as I was organizing this pantry, I came across lots of instruction manuals and a few recipe clippings here and there on the shelves. I collected them together in a simple multi-purpose bin.

The finished, organized pantry sure is prettier than when I started. But more importantly, all of these pantry organizing hacks helped me create an organizing system that will make this space easy to maintain and keep organized!

SHOP THIS ORGANIZED PANTRY

The post Simple Pantry Organization Hacks appeared first on Blue i Style.

Water Bottle Storage

blueistyle — Fri, 19 Jan 2018 16:00:00 +0000

Do you ever flinch as you open one of your kitchen cabinets because you expect something to come tumbling out at your face? That was me with the cabinet where we store our water bottles. Once upon a time, I had organized the cabinet using baskets. That worked well when my boys were using mostly sippy cups, but as we transitioned to water bottles that are bigger around that the sippy cups, they no longer fit in the baskets very well, and we ended up with a scary situation like this…

I knew I needed to find a better solution, and one that would maximize the available space in our cabinet. I started by removing everything from the cabinet so that I could decide what should really make its way back in, and what we should donate.

This post contains some affiliate links. If you purchase something I recommend, I may receive a small commission, but you’ll pay the same price.

The shelves were pretty dirty, so I quickly wiped out the dust and crumbs, and then used a magic eraser to remove the remaining scuffs and marks.

Once I’d sorted through our water bottle collection and decided what should stay and what should go, I took inventory to see how many bottles I needed to make room for.

One of the keys to keeping any space organized is to create a system that makes it easier to put things away in the right spot than to not. For our water bottles, this meant I needed a solution where each bottle had a designated spot so that we never had to rearrange things to make them fit, and where we’d never have to worry about bottles tipping over and falling out of the cabinet.

If you saw my Instagram Story last week, then you already know that the water bottle storage solution I came up with is to use some stacking wine racks! Since we have water bottles of different size and shapes, I picked these solid plastic iDesign wine holders. Most of the wood and metal options aren’t solid and would allow shorter water bottles to fall through, but these solid plastic are perfect and they come in white or clear.

I adjusted the shelves in the cabinet to allow me to stack the wine racks three high on the bottom and middle shelves.

I ended up using a total of 9 of the stacking wine racks {they’re cheaper when you buy them in sets of 2 or 4, so I have one extra that I’ll probably end up using in the fridge}.

I’m still using a basket on the second shelf up for some miscellaneous items that we don’t use often, but didn’t want to get rid of, like a few cups with lids and straws.

But all of the water bottles that we use on a regular basis, as well as a few insulated coffee cups, fit perfectly on the stacking wine racks. I love that I can see everything when I open the cabinet door, and it’s so easy to grab what I need and just as easy to put them away!

To get the rest of the cabinet organized, I’m using a small lazy susan for all of the boys plastic cups. I found that stacking them upside down makes them more stable, so they don’t tip over as I turn it around.

My boys can’t get enough of these super long bendy straws that can be twisted into spirals, or even tied in a knot. I grabbed an extra mason jar to keep the straws up right and in easy reach.

We’ve donated all of our other sippy cups, but I do like having a few toddler cups on hand for friends and cousins when they visit. Our favorites are the dentist-recommended, spoutless Miracle Cups. They don’t stack inside each other very well, but I had just enough room left on the shelf for four of them stacked two deep.

I always joke about how happy an organized space makes me, and that I’ll open the door just to admire it. Well, I think I’ve officially rubbed off on my husband, because Scott can’t stop opening the cabinet door and the silverware drawer {a story for another day} and smiling at the new organized situation.

I love quick and easy organizing projects! There’s so much satisfaction in finding a simple solution that solves a problem and makes life a little easier! This might just be my favorite five minute organizing project of all time!

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Charger Cord Organizer with Custom Icon Labels

blueistyle — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 01:30:00 +0000

Technology has become such an essential part of our every day lives that I feel like I’m totally drowning in cords, cables, and chargers lately! The kitchen is the heart of our home, and I typically wind up working at the kitchen table rather than my home office in order to be closer to the kids, so I was desperately in need of a charger cord organizer to contain and organize all of technology in this space.

I finally came up with a phone charger organizer that is not only functional, but also stylish enough that I don’t mind having it on display on my kitchen counter! It even has enough extra space to organize headphones, portable speakers, camera batteries, USB drives, and more!

Thank you to Cricut for sponsoring this post, and thank you for supporting the brands that make this blog possible. As always all opinions are my own. This post also contains affiliate links.

A couple of years ago I showed you my quick and easy solution for labeling all of my cords and cables so I could keep track of what goes with which electronics, but I was still struggling with where to store all of the cables that we use on a daily basis.

Let’s go back in time one week so I can show you how I was dealing with this problem previously. You know that I’m a fan of using baskets to organize, but I’m also the first to admit when a basket just isn’t getting the job done. This was one of two baskets full of charging cords and small electronics that were junking up my kitchen counter, and digging through the baskets to find what I needed was driving me crazy!

While shopping at IKEA last week, I spotted a set of mini chest of drawers, that I realized could be the perfect solution! This product, called Moppe, has been popular on Pinterest for quite a while because it is raw wood – lending itself to being easily customized to fit the style of any space. But until recently it wasn’t available in the US.

I brought the Moppe home, sat it on the counter and started filling up the drawers to test it out. It was the perfect size for everything I needed to organize, so it was time to get creative and decide how to make these drawers look nicer in my kitchen. I started by giving the outer frame a coat of stain, and then spray painted the drawers using left over paint from my garage pegboard.

The stain and paint immediately made my mini chest of drawers look pretty, but it’s the labels that really give it a polished look. This is one of my best organizing tips – LABEL EVERYTHING! Not only do labels allow you to add a little extra style, they also make it easy for everyone in the house to find what they need {and it takes away any excuse for people to not put things away}.

There are so many ways to create DIY labels, but one of my favorite ways has always been to use my Cricut electronic cutter. Until recently, I was still using the original, decade old version of the machine. But a few months ago, my friends at Cricut sent me the updated Explore Air machine to try out, and wow!

With my old machine, I was limited to cutting with the fonts and graphics available on Cricut cartridges. But with my new machine I can cut anything that I can dream up! Not only can I use all of the fonts on my computer {as I showed you on the custom wood sign I created for my garage} – I can also upload my own designs and use Cricut Design Space to covert my JPEGs into cutable files.

Rather than labeling the drawers of my Moppe with words, I decided to create some simple icon labels that I cut out of white adhesive vinyl with my Cricut Explore Air.

If you want to learn how to upload and convert your images into files that Cricut can cut, I’ve got the full tutorial for you at the end of this post. But first, I want to show you how I put the custom icons stickers on the drawers, and what I organized inside those drawers.

After cutting the icons using my Cricut, I began peeled away the excess vinyl from around the round icons, and then began “weeding” the vinyl from the center of each icon to create negative space.

Each of my icon labels is just 1.5 inches in diameter, and some of the icons have very fine details – so I was a bit nervous about how well they would cut. But the precision of the cuts was spot on!

After I finished weeding they vinyl from the center of each icon, I strip of vinyl transfer tape over the icons, smoothing it down to burnish the vinyl onto the surface of the transfer tape.

I then slowly peeled the transfer tape away from the Cricut mat, ensuring that the vinyl lifted up with the transfer tape.

I used scissors to cut the icons apart in preparation for applying each to one of the newly painted drawers.

I positioned the first icon in the bottom right corner of one of the drawers and used a craft stick to burnish the vinyl to the drawer.

I then slowly peeled back the transfer tape, ensuring that the vinyl was firmly adhered to the drawer.

With all of my vinyl icon labels on the drawers, I was ready to fill up my mini chest of drawers.

From the top left, the drawers contain:

Camera batteries and chargers
Power banks and portable chargers
USB storage devices / Flash drives
Charging cords and cables
Portable speakers and my favorite bluetooth headset
Camera lenses and lens hoods

I am so excited about how this project turned out! It has allowed me to organize all of our chargers, cords, and even camera lenses in the place where I spend most of my working hours – then kitchen. And best of all, it actually looks nice sitting on the kitchen counter right next to our “mudroom” bench.

The stain is a nice match to our cabinets and the light teal spray paint that I used on the drawers looks great with our glass tile backsplash – both of which help the chest of drawers to blend in a bit. And the custom vinyl icon labels on each drawer are subtle but stylish, and ensure that everyone in the family can find what they need! That’s an organizing win/win/win!

I love this organizing solution so much that I’ve already bought a few more of these Moppe mini-drawer sets to organize some other challenging spaces! And you can be sure that I’ll be using my Cricut Explore Air to customize those as well.

HOW TO CUT CUSTOM LABELS USING CRICUT DESIGN SPACE

Ok, so now let’s get into the nitty gritty details! The following is a quick tutorial for how to upload and cut your own images using the Cricut Explore Air.

In order to create the icon labels on the drawers, I began by downloading some simple icon images from the internet and using Photoshop to overlay the icons onto black circles, saving each images as a JPEG.

Then, to turn the round icons into cut-files, I signed in to Cricut Design Space and began by uploading the image files.

Click UPLOAD IMAGES > UPLOAD IMAGE > BROWSE. Then choose the first file you want to upload from the files on your computer.

Once the file is uploaded, select whether it is a “Simple Image,” “Moderately Complex Image,” or “Complex Image,” based on the provided descriptions. Each of my icons were “Simple Images.”

I wanted the cut the black portion of each icon image from adhesive vinyl to be applied to my drawers, and I wanted the white portion of each image to become negative space through which the color of the drawer would show through. I used the “Select & Erase” tool to click on and remove each white area of the design. The checkerboard pattern indicates transparency, and shows the areas of of the design that I removed.

After selecting and erasing each white portion of the icon designs, I clicked on the “Preview” button. The dark gray area that remains shows my design as it will be cut by the Cricut machine.

In the next step, the program prompted me to select whether I wanted to save the icon as a “Print Then Cut” image, or as a “Cut Image.” Since I wanted to cut the icon out of white vinyl, I chose the “Cut Image” option.

After uploading all six of my icon images, I added all of them to the canvas, where I resized each to 1.5″ – the final size that I wanted to cut.

After resizing each of the images, I clicked on the GO button and proceeded to connect my Cricut Explore Air to my computer, loaded the mat, and cut the icons from my white adhesive vinyl {as shown above}.

This was my first time cutting one of my own files using my Cricut, and it couldn’t have been easier. I expected there to be a steep learning curve like there is with most design software, but Cricut Design Space walked me through each step, making it simple and easy, and completely removing the intimidation factor! Now that I know how easy it is to cut anything I want using my new Cricut, my mind and my Explore Air are both going to be working overtime!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine. Comments submitted may be displayed or featured on other websites owned by Cricut.

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Turning a Printer Stand into a Rolling Bar Cart

blueistyle — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 13:15:00 +0000

Thank you to Rust-Oleum for sponsoring this post. As always all opinions are my own. You can read my full disclosure statement here.

The saying goes that “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” so I took the work out of a boring printer stand, and turned it into a stylish, rolling bar cart perfect for play and entertaining. This is the final makeover in my Drab to Fab makeover series for the Denver Home Show {you can find the other three here: 1920’s chair; dull oak desk; IKEA Lack sidetable} and it might just be the biggest transformation of them all.

I was originally on the hunt for a short bookshelf to convert to a bar cart, but after hitting up quite a few thrift stores with no luck, I was excited to find a printer stand at the Habitat Re-Store with bar cart potential.

SUPPLIES:

TOOLS:

Screwdriver
Wood filler
Painter’s tape
Paint Brush
Foam Roller
Paint tray and liners
Pencil
Drill
Sand paper
Plastic Drop Cloth

STEP 1: PREPARE PRINTER STAND FOR MAKEOVER

Before beginning to paint the printer stand, I started by removing the doors.

I assembled an inexpensive Hutton wood wine rack from IKEA and placed it in the lower opening of the cabinet to test the size – perfect fit!

I used a bit of wood filler to patch the holes left by the door hinges, and then sanded them smooth.

The printer stand was on casters, but some were broken, so I removed and replaced them.

Replacing the casters gave me the chance to pick a more stylish option. I didn’t want to spend much, but found a simple set of casters with gold hoods – perfect for tying it the other gold accents I had planned for the bar cart.

STEP 2: PAINT PRINTER STAND

After cleaning the cabinet and taping of the top, I was ready to start painting. That’s right – no sanding required because I used Rust-Oleum Chalked Paint. Yay for that! I chose Windsor Gray, which turned out to a little lighter than I expected based on the color swatch, but I am actually really happy with the way it coordinates with the countertop {I’ll get to that soon!}.

I applied two coats of Chalked Paint, then two coats of Rust-Oleum Chalked Matte Clear Protective Topcoat. You can read my full tutorial and tips for using Rust-Oleum Chalked Paint and protective top coat in my desk makeover post from last week.

STEP 3: PAINT & PREPARE BAR CART ACCESSORIES

In between coats of paint on the bar cart, I was running out the garage to spray paint all of the bar cart accessories. I used Rust-Oleum Universal Pure Gold spray paint {check out that trigger – no more spray paint finger cramps!} to paint the wine rack, two stemware holders, and two hooks.

I originally intended to use the hooks to hold dish towels. But then I decided that I wanted a handle of some sort on one end of the bar cart to make it easy to push and pull around. I remembered that I had a set of IKEA two cabinet pulls {similar to these} left over from a project a couple of years ago, so I painted both gold to install on each end of the cart – one to use as a handle, the other serve as a towel bar. That meant I didn’t end up using the hooks I had painted… but I have no doubt the gold hooks will find a good home very soon.

I wanted to install the stemware holders in the shorter, upper opening of the cart, but getting a drill into the space to create the pilot holes was going to be very tricky. My husband came up with a great solution – drilling the pilot holes from the top!

Before staring to paint the counter top, we determined the placement of stemware holders below the counter, and then laid them in the same position on top of the counter.

I marked the location of the stemware holders with a pencil…

…and then Scott used a small drill bit to drill pilot holes for the stemware holders all the way through the top of the bar cart.

We then used wood filler to patch the holes in the top of the counter, leaving accessible the holes on the bottom for easy stemware holder installation when the time came. I’m sure glad that Scott came up with this plan before we started painting the countertop because it avoided later headaches!

STEP 4: TRANSFORM COUNTERTOP

Ok, now this is the part I’m really excited to tell you about! To give the bar cart a high end look – far from its printer stand roots – I wanted to make it look like it had nice, stone countertop. I’d seen Rust-Oleum Countertop Transformations Kit at my local hardware store, and I was super curious to give it a try. It’s a multi-step process that creates the look of real granite!

This Countertop Transformations Kit is enough to cover 50 square feet, but since my tiny bar cart top was only a whopping 4 square feet, I didn’t come close to using the full kit. That being the case, I can’t say that this is the most affordable solution for such a tiny countertop, but Rust-Oleum was kind enough to send me a kit to try out. While I wouldn’t recommend you buy the kit just for a small project like mine, it is a fantastic option to give an outdated kitchen or bathroom a brand new look, and then any left overs are perfect for dressing up the laminate top of a bar cart, portable kitchen island, or even a dresser.

The Countertop Transformations Kit comes with lots of supplies, and it is a very specific, multi-step process. It comes with an instruction guide, as well as a short DVD tutorial {you can watch the video here}. It’s not difficult at all – but it’s very important to follow all of the instructions carefully! I’m going to share an overview of the process only to help you understand what is involved, but I’m not covering every details you’ll need to accomplish this project.

We started by roughing up the top of the bar cart using the diamond embedded sanding block that came with the kit – sanding it until none of the shiny appearance remained. Then we wiped it down to remove all the dust.

Before moving on to the painting step, we used a plastic drop cloth and painter’s tape to cover the rest of the bar cart.

We used a dense foam roller to coat the countertop with the black adhesive base coat. Since I was working on such a small surface, I was able to paint the entire top at once, but if you were working on a larger project, you’d need to work in sections.

Working quickly, while the adhesive base coat remained tacky, we used the dispenser tool to spread the decorative color chips, heavily coating the entire counter surface. This was definitely the most fun {and messiest} part of the process.

We were working inside because it was too cold in the garage, so we had covered the floor of our living room in a large drop cloth, which made clean up easy. But I can definitely put this on the list of things I never thought I’d do in the living room. Here’s a quick little video to show you what it looks like when you spread the decorative color chips.

We waited 12 hours, then moved on to the next step. We used a small hand broom to brush away all the loose, excess decorative chips. Then we used the plastic scraper tool {which came with the kit} to smooth the chip edges and remove any loose chips.

Then we sanded the counter until it was extremely smooth. To make it easy, the kit includes a sample piece that shows exactly what the surface should look and feel like after sanding.

Once the counter was totally smooth, we were ready to apply the protective top coat, which is a two part formula. The instructions call for mixing all of the activator {part A} into the base {part B}. However, once mixed, the protective top coat must be used within a limited time frame.

Since I had only used a small portion of the total Countertop Transformations Kit, I wanted to save the rest for another project in the future. That meant I couldn’t mix the entire protective coat all at once. Instead I calculated the ratio of Part A to Part B, and used a syringe to measure and mix just enough for sealing my small bar cart countertop.

I then used a dense foam roller to apply the protective top coat, and then rolled the bar cart to a safe location {out of reach of the kids} to allow it to dry for 48 hours. After two days, the counter was dry enough to touch, and ready for light use {longer dry time is required before resuming full use in a kitchen or bathroom}.

STEP 5: INSTALL BAR CART ACCESSORIES

Once the counter was dry enough for us to touch, we were ready install all the accessories to complete the bar cart. We installed the cabinet pulls on each end of the cart, then screwed the stemware holders in place {using the pilot holes we had pre-drilled}. We also used a few long screws to attach the wine rack to the side of the cabinet to keep it securely in place.

And with that, the bar cart was complete!

I think it’s a pretty great transformation – and the countertop is what really gives it that high end look high end look I was after! Doesn’t it look like real granite?!

Of course, to really appreciate this drab to fab transformation, you have to see the cart all filled up and ready for entertaining!

Since this bar cart is going to be on display at the Denver Home Show this weekend, I needed some stylish but budget friendly items to stage it with. I created the champagne bucket, ice bucket, and black and white striped tray on the bottom shelf for just a few dollars and in only about 5 minutes each, and I used gold spray paint to transform a neon green plastic basket to a stylish accessory. I’ll share the tutorials for each of those with you in a couple of weeks.

All four Drab to Fab furniture makeovers are now complete, and I delivered all of them to the Denver Home Show site a few days ago. I’m so glad to have them all done, I’m so thankful to Rust-Oleum for sponsoring this fun project, and I’m ready to sleep for about a week!

If you are in the Denver area, you can stop by the Denver Home Show this weekend (Friday-Sunday) to see each item in-person. And if you saw something you liked, you’re in luck, because all of the furniture will be for sale, with the proceeds going to charity! I’ve even got discounted show tickets for you!

Linked up at Remodelaholic

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An Easy Way to File Recipe Clippings and Delivery Menus

blueistyle — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 20:20:00 +0000

Try as I might, magazines always manage to pile up around our house. But I just can’t let go of them until I’ve had a chance to tear out any ideas I might want to save for later – especially recipes. So this morning, while the kids played, I dedicated an hour to flipping through a stack of magazines, tearing out all the recipes I want to try.

As the I tossed all the recipe clippings into a pile, I realized today would be a perfect time to show you the simple filing system I use in the kitchen to keep track of all our recipes and menus.

I’ve actually talked about this filing system once before, but it was back when about 10 people were reading the blog … so I’m betting this will be new to most of you!

I’ve been tearing recipes out of magazines for as long as I can remember, but for a long time, they just contributed to our kitchen paper problem. They’d get lost in stacks of paper, and we’d never actually cook any of them.

Finally, I’d had enough! I wanted to find a way to organize all of these recipe clippings so that we could actually try them, but I needed the system to be quick easy. And that’s when I remembered the cute little file box (affiliate link) that I had purchased.

I bought the box because I loved the hinged lid and the color, and because it was on sale. I knew I’d eventually find a good use for – I mean, really, you can never have too many filing supplies at the ready (tell me I’m not the only one who hordes pretty office supplies?!)

The box came with matching files, so all I had to do was sort my menu clippings into categories: Breakfast, Appetizers, Lunch & Dinner, Side Dishes, Desserts, and Drinks.

After living with this recipe clipping file system for a while, I decided to add one more file that I labeled “Recipes: Favorites.” Now when I tear recipes out of magazines, or print them from online, I simply put each recipe into the file corresponding with its category. And then once I’ve tried a recipe, I ask myself whether it’s something I would make again. If the answer is no, it goes directly into the recycling bin, and if the answer is yes, it goes into the new Favorites file.

When I want to make something tried and tested, I go straight to the Favorites file, and when I am in the mood for something new, I can thumb through the other files for inspiration. I plan to eventually create a binder of some kind for all of the recipes that end up in the Favorites file, but for now, this system is keeping me on track.

This file box also allowed me to tackle another source of my never ending struggles with piles of paper – menus. While I like to cook, I would be lying if I told you I cook dinner every night of the week. The truth is that there may be a few delivery drivers who know us by name. And so the menus piled up – until now.

I sorted all of our menus, separating the delivery menus from the menus for favorite local restaurants that {sadly} do not deliver, and I created two files.

In the process of sorting through all of our menus, I also came across a handful of brochures for food vendors that are regulars at our neighborhood farmer’s market. I like to keep this information on hand so that in the off-season, we can still get in contact with these companies. Sometimes we just can’t wait until spring to restock our freezer with homemade tamales! These farmer’s market brochures got their own file.

This project started because I had piles of recipes clippings and menus that were getting out of hand. But if I can give you one piece of advice about filing, it’s to sort all of your papers before determining how to label your files. Inevitably, you will discover other things in your pile that necessitate additional files, so it’s best to sort first and label second.

In the process of my sorting, realized that many of my magazine clippings aren’t recipes, but still deserve a place in the kitchen. As a result, I added a new file for these clilppings that I labeled “Kitchen Tips & Tricks.”

Lastly, this kitchen file box provided a perfect place for me to store the manuals for our various kitchen appliances and gadgets. I have a separate system for storing instruction manuals elsewhere in the house, but it just made more sense to rellocate the kitchen manuals to the kitchen.

And that’s how a little procrastination from one organizing project can turn in to a great organizing solution for an entirely different problem. My pantry may still be a mess {I’ll get back to that soon}, but at least my recipe clippings and menus are now quick and easy to find, and I have one less pile of papers cluttering up my counters.

This file box fits perfectly on a shelf inside of one of our kitchen cupboards, keeping it out of sight, but still within easy reach. Now when I tear recipes out of magazines, or when new menus come in the mail, I simply pull out this box and file them away before they become clutter.

Not only was this filing system quick and easy to create, it also takes just a minute or two to keep up! Recipes and menus now go directly in to the box before they ever have a chance to become kitchen clutter!

My menu and recipe file box is one of three filing systems that I implemented to get our kitchen paper problem in check. The other two are our counter top filing system for incoming mail and bills, and a mini expanding filer to keep my coupons and gift cards on-hand at all times.

Looking for more kitchen organizing inspiration? Check out these projects:

InLinkz.com

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This Quick Tip Will Keep Your Pantry Organized

blueistyle — Fri, 18 Sep 2015 23:43:00 +0000

As I was putting away groceries the other day, it occurred to me how differently I approach that mundane task now than I used to. For years, putting away the groceries meant simply finding a place for everything on the pantry shelves – a box here, a box there, making room or just shoving a box in even if there wasn’t room.

Finally, I buckled down and spent several days completely emptying the pantry and fully reorganizing it from scratch. And that time investment paid off! When I stood back and admired my newly organized and pretty pantry, I promised myself I would keep it that way. And you know what? For once, I did! The pantry has now stayed organized for nearly two years, and there is one simple habit that helps me keep it that way.

So, how have I managed to keep the pantry organized for nearly two years when I can’t seem to keep my bedroom closet clean for a month? Much of the credit goes to the fact that I took the time to put a well thought out, manageable plan in place for the pantry {which I definitely can’t say about my closet…at lest not yet anyway}. But after that – week after week – the #1 key to maintaining the pantry organization is the fact that I now spend five extra minutes after every grocery trip doing one simple thing… getting rid of all those boxes!

When I come home from grocery shopping, I immediately empty everything from the bags, sorting by fridge, freezer and pantry. The fridge and freezer items get put right away, and then I’m left with a counter top that looks like this … covered in boxes!

And this is the moment when I have to stop myself from reverting to my old habit of opening the pantry door and just shoving all the boxes inside where ever I can fit them. Instead, I force myself to dedicate an extra five minutes to this grocery-putting-away chore that I really don’t enjoy. But it’s those five minutes that has kept our pantry organized for the past two years, so I sigh and just do it.

I open nearly every box, remove its contents and flatten the boxes for recycling.

WHY DO I EMPTY ALL THE BOXES?

A few months ago, I shared my 5 Steps to an Organized and Pretty Pantry, and step 3 is to use appropriate containers. I talk a lot about the benefits of using baskets and bins to group like items together and keep them organized on pantry shelves. But boxes are bulky and they take up a lot of space. Just a couple of boxes can quickly fill and entire basket just like that. And that’s why very few boxes ever make their way in to my pantry at all.

Most boxes are typically much larger than their contents, meaning they take up more space than necessary, right from the start. And then, as soon as you start to consume the contents, you quickly end up with half empty or mostly empty box – which is an even bigger waste of space. If I were to keep my food in these bulky boxes, I wouldn’t be able to fit everything neatly into my labeled pantry bins, and very quickly I’d be right where I used to be, just shoving boxes in here, there, and everywhere, and the organized pantry would be a thing of the past. The last thing I want is to wind up back at this scary before photo…

Not only do boxes take up a lot of unnecessary space, they also make it hard to know, at a glance, what you’re running low on. You can’t glance at a box of cereal and know if it’s mostly full, or nearly empty. I make a shopping list throughout the week {I keep clipped up on our pantry bulletin board}, but I also like to be able to quickly glance in each of the pantry bins before my trip to the grocery store to see if there is anything else I need to add to the list.

Before I started removing our food items from the boxes, I would find myself staring into the pantry, basically trying to guess what else I needed to put on the list based on my recollection of how many granola bars I thought were left, because it took too much time to check every box. Then I’d wind up coming home from the store with duplicates of some items and without some of the items we actually did need. Doh! This was not only super frustrating, but also made it harder to stay organized, because I just don’t have room to store those unnecessary duplicates in our small pantry.

HOW DO I STORE THE FOOD WITHOUT THE BOXES?

Ok, so that’s the why. But now you’re probably wondering about the how. How do I keep the pantry organized without the boxes to contain all the loose food items?

Let’s start with the large drawers on the floor of the pantry. I use these for the items that are just for the kids, like the fruit and veggie and apple sauce pouches that they love, and snacks in individual serving sizes.

By storing the kid specific items in these drawers, the kids have easy access to independently choose snacks {although I still control their access with a child-lock on the pantry door, so they can’t over indulge}. Removing the snack items from boxes before putting them in the drawers makes it much easier for the kids to find what they want and for me to know when we are running low.

These drawers work great for the bulkier kids items, but when it comes to smaller items, they could quickly become disorganized inside the baskets on our pantry shelves. To solve this problem, I use smaller bins to contain loose items inside the larger baskets. For example, within our breakfast basket, I have a smaller bin that I use to hold individual granola bars and packets of oatmeal.

When it comes to foods that aren’t individually packaged, I had to decide {when I planned the pantry organization} whether to leave them in their original containers, or to transfer them to reusable containers. I knew that, realistically, if I planned to transfer too many items, it would be hard to keep up after each grocery shopping trip. To maximize storage space in the pantry, while still keeping the system manageable, I chose to only transfer those staple items that I have in my pantry at all times {like flour, sugar, rice and certain pastas}, and those items that are otherwise hard to store in their original containers {either due to inconvenient size or packaging}.

For example, our pantry shelves are just a bit too short for cereal boxes to stand upright, and when I used to turn the boxes on their side, the contents often ended up spilling out. Therefore, in my pantry, cereal is another item that I always transfer to reusable containers as soon as I bring it home from the grocery store. I have three plastic jars designated for cereal that stack right in front of one another on the pantry shelf. I make sure to never buy more cereal than will fit in these three containers.

I use the same containers to transfer the goldfish crackers and pretzel fish crackers that we buy in bulk for the kids, but other types of chips and crackers that I don’t buy consistently generally stay in their original containers. There are no hard and fast rules about what to transfer and what not to, it’s a matter of finding the right balance for your pantry.

So there you have it – the why and the how. It took an investment of time to get the pantry organization system set up in the first place, but now that we have all of the baskets, bins, and reusable containers organized in place, it only takes me about five extra minutes after every shopping trip to take the food out the boxes and to collapse them for recycling. But that five minutes makes the difference between the pantry staying organized and falling back into the chaos that it once was, which makes it time very well spent!

Still Looking for More Pantry Organization Tips?

In this post, I’ve hit on just a couple of the highlights of my organized pantry, but you can read much more, including my 5 Steps to an Organized and Pretty Pantry in the original pantry post.

And if you are looking for even more pantry organization ideas, be sure to also check out my printable pantry labels, my pantry wall spice organization, my pantry door bulletin board, and the DIY chalkboard clipboards that hang on the pantry wall to keep track of school notes.

Let’s get social!

Linked up at Remodelaholic

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Pretty Pantry Labels Three Ways + FREE PRINTABLE LABELS

blueistyle — Thu, 28 May 2015 09:46:00 +0000

Last week I shared my five steps for creating an organized and pretty pantry, and I gave you a tour of our pantry space. Over a year after first completing our pantry makeover, the space is functioning just as well today as it did on day one – and I believe we have the labels to thank for that!

Without labels, our pantry would just be a sea of matching white bins. I would have a pretty good idea of what goes where, since I organized it to start with, but imagine my poor kids and husband! They would never be able to find things, and certainly wouldn’t be able to help put groceries away without things quickly becoming a disorganized mess!

This post contains some affiliate links. If you purchase something I recommend, you will pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission, which helps keep this blog free. As always, I only recommend products I truly love!

When labeling, there are two keys I always like to keep in mind – making it pretty and keeping it flexible. Certainly your labels don’t have to be pretty to be functional, but over time I’ve discovered that when I take a few extra minutes to make thing pretty, I am much more likely to keep things in order so that the space stays pretty. Flexibility is also important, because no matter how well you plan a space, it’s inevitable that your needs will change over time, so you’re labels will need to be able to change to keep up with the times.

In our pantry, I used three different methods for labeling the baskets, drawers and canisters – each with varying degrees of flexibility depending on how frequently I anticipate the need to update the labels.

BASKET LABELS. The labels on the white stacking baskets identify major categories of food we keep in our pantry at all times. I anticipate that these categories will rarely change, so for these labels I focused on durability, but still maintained flexibility by simply tying them to the baskets, making it quick and easy to remove and replace a label if need be.

Since these baskets will be constantly moved on and off of the shelves, it was vital that these labels be durable. I knew that simple paper labels wouldn’t hold up over time. Instead, I created heavier duty labels with a protective coating. To create these basket labels:

(1) I printed my labels on to card stock and cut them out;
(2) I glued each label to thin, medium weight chipboard {left over from creating my paint and fabric swatch kit} and trimmed the chipboard down to the same size as the labels before sealing each label with a coat of Mod Podge {over the top, back and sides of the labels};
(3) I inserted an small silver eyelet in the top corners of the labels using my Cropadile eyelet setter; and
(4) I then used black and white baker’s twine to tie each label onto my baskets.

DRAWER LABELS. Unlike the white baskets which contain major categories of food that we always have on hand, the contents of the drawers on the floor will change over time. Last year, when I first completed the pantry, two of these drawers contained baby food and formula. Since that time, our younger son has left the baby stage, and we have repurposed those drawers to store the small, reusable containers that we use for packing preschool lunches. Over time, the contents of the other drawers {like the one packed full of bibs} will also change.

Since the contents of these drawers will change occasionally, I wanted to ensure that the labels could be updated from time to time. I considered using sticker paper, but I have found that the adhesive is strong and it can be difficult to cleanly remove. Instead, I used printable window decal film to label the drawer fronts, assuring that the labels will stay firmly in place until I choose to remove them, but will be easy to remove when the time comes to update them. To create these drawer labels:

(1) I printed the labels on to the window decal film and cut them out;

(2) Then I peeled the decals from the backing and stuck them to the drawer fronts.

It only took one of the ten decal sheets in the package to label all of my drawers, leaving me with nine more sheets for the future {and I plan to use some of those extra sheets to help my boys make holiday decorations for our windows}. By using window decals to label the drawer fronts, I am assured that the labels will stay firmly in place until I choose to remove them, but will be easy to remove when the time comes.

CANISTER LABELS. I addition to the baskets and drawers, I also used quite a few plastic screw top canisters in my pantry organization. When filling these canisters, I discarded the original packaging, but I wanted to retain the important information {like best by dates}. Since the contents of these canisters will change frequently as we use up items and purchase refills, I needed the canister labels to be very easy to updated.

Since the canisters will need to be washed from time to time, I opted to label the lids rather than the fronts of the containers. This way the canisters can be popped in the dishwasher, and the lids can be quickly wiped down. To create these canister labels:

(1) I used some colorful adhesive backed vinyl, which can be purchased at any craft store {mine was left over from prior projects {like this one, and this one, and this one};
(2) I cut traced circles on the backing of the vinyl, cut them out, and stuck them to the top of the canisters;
(3) Then I used a chalk marker to label the contents and the “best by” date.
(4) The chalk marker quickly wipes away with a damp cloth, and the labels are then ready to be marked with the new contents and date.

FREE PRINTABLE PANTRY LABELS! Are you ready to get your pantry organized with some pretty labels? To get you started, you can download the labels that I used for our pantry baskets! Happy organizing!

The post Pretty Pantry Labels Three Ways + FREE PRINTABLE LABELS appeared first on Blue i Style.

How to Organize a Small Reach-In Pantry

blueistyle — Thu, 21 May 2015 08:29:00 +0000

Do you drool over those gorgeous walk-in pantry organization photos in magazines and on Pinterest? Me too! The only problem is that I don’t have a walk-in pantry to make gorgeous! But after living in a condo for years with no pantry at all, even a smallish reach-in pantry seemed like such a luxury when we moved in to our current home. It took me years to figure out how to organize the pantry to make the most of our space, but after some failed attempts, I’ve finally figured out how to create a pretty and organized pantry that’s easy to maintain!

At first we had so much extra space that I didn’t really need a great organization plan to keep things relatively tidy. But over the years, a lot changed. We now have two kids and we eat at home way more than we used to. Over time, the pantry filled up and, without an organization system, it quickly went from spacious to overflowing {and embarrassing}. When hosting dinner parties and book club, I always made a huge effort to make sure no one saw the hot mess behind the door!

In fairness, you can see in the embarrassing before photos that I pretended to organize the pantry once upon a time… I mean, I put a few bins in there… But, yeah, it didn’t really work out! There were some bins and baskets on the shelves, and even some drawers down there on the floor {yeah, that’s right, the drawers that couldn’t be opened because there was so much STUFF in front of them}. But clearly bins and baskets aren’t enough if you don’t have a solid plan in place.

I knew that I needed to get the pantry whipped into shape, but I also knew it was going to take some real effort to find a system that would work for our family. And since I often work best under a deadline, last spring I volunteered to share my organized pantry as a guest post on another blog. Nothing like a little motivation, right?!Here’s the really good news… more than a year later, the pantry is still just as organized, and we’ve even made a few new improvements to take advantage of every available inch of storage space!

Now that I know this system is really working for us, and sustainable in the long run, I decided it was time to share my top five pantry organizing tips!

PANTRY ORGANIZING TIP #1: START WITH A BLANK SLATE

I started by completely emptying the pantry, throwing away anything that was expired, and creating a donate pile for any non-perishable items that we just weren’t going to use. I cleaned the shelves and swept the floor, and then I gave it a facelift with some fabulous grey chevron shelf liner. But rather than lining my shelves {most of which are above my eye level}, I instead lined the wall behind the shelves!

PANTRY ORGANIZING TIP #2: SORT, CATEGORIZE & FORM A PLAN

Categorize.

Next I sorted all of the food that was now spread all over my kitchen counters and grouped like items together. As I sorted, categories started to take shape. Once all of my food was sorted, I made a list of the categories that I needed to accommodate in the pantry {breakfast foods, side dishes, cans, baking supplies, misc. bottled items, etc}.

Measure Twice.

Once I had a list of items that needed to go back in to the pantry, I began to make a plan. I took detailed measurements of my shelves {including the width, height and depth – taking into account the shelf supports on the edges}. I drew myself a sketch of my pantry before shopping for containers, which made it much easier to ensure the items I bought would actually fit when I brought them home.

Place Daily Use Items at Eye Level.

Then I began to sketch out what I wanted to store on each shelf, taking into consideration which items we use most frequently. I recommend you store the items you use daily on the shelves nearest your eye level. If you have kids, consider dedicating space on the lowest shelves for the items that you want them to have easy access to.

Place the food you use less frequently {like baking items} or that you want to eat less frequently {like desserts} on the higher shelves – ideally still within reach without the assistance of a step stool. This not only ensures that you are not taking up prime real estate on the lower shelves, but the concept of out of sight, out of mind also works wonders. We eat many less cookies and dessert like snacks now that they are less conveniently placed in a bin above eye level {this works especially well since my husband and I are both short!}.

The very top shelf of the pantry {the one you likely can’t reach without a step ladder} is a good place to store primarily non-food items that you don’t use often.

In our pantry, this includes my large roasting pan, my bread machine, and baskets full of bread machine mixes and seasonal items {such as cookie cutters and pumpkin carving tools}.

This post contains some affiliate links. If you purchase something I recommend, you will pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission.

PANTRY ORGANIZING TIP #3: CHOOSE APPROPRIATE CONTAINERS

Baskets are a Great Alternative to a Custom Pantry System.

I would love to someday install a custom pantry system with pull out drawers in place of shelves, but since that wasn’t in the budget at this time, I determined that baskets would be the next best thing for storing most of our food items. Baskets allow me to corral like items, and are easy to lift off of the shelves to see all of the contents {ensuring that nothing gets lost and forgotten just because it’s not right up front}. I took careful measurements of the pantry, and then went shopping for baskets that would best fit the space.

I love the Sterilite stacking baskets because they are sturdy, affordable, come in multiple sizes, and can be easily stacked. I used sticky notes to indicate the categories, and began to fill them up with food.

As I filled the baskets, I had to make some tweaks to my list of categories – splitting some in to two.

Use Containers Within Containers.

I like to immediately remove certain items {like granola bars and oatmeal packets} from their original boxes as soon as I bring them home from the grocery store because those boxes just take up to much room in the pantry {especially once you’ve eaten some of the contents and the box is half empty}. But small items can quickly become disorganized inside large baskets, so I recommend using smaller bins to contain loose items within your larger baskets or drawers.

Lazy Susans Are Great – But Not Ideal For Cans.

I had previously been using a large lazy Susan for all of my cans, but this solution wasn’t working well for me anymore. Since most cans are relatively short, I was stacking my cans two or three high to take full advantage of the vertical space, which created a situation where I was constantly knocking things over as I tried to get to the cans in the center of the turntable. I looked at a number of other options for can organization, and really liked these gravity fed can racks.

With all of my cans transferred to the new racks, I was left with an empty lazy Susan which I quickly filled up with all of our various bottled food items, including things like peanut butter, cooking oils and sprays, and hot sauces. I felt that these items were better suited for the lazy Susan because of their height and because they would quickly become too heavy if placed in a basket.

I was careful to place the more frequently used items around the outer edges of the turntable, and the less frequently used items in the center. The lazy Susan now gives my husband easy access to all of his favorite condiments.

Consider Transferring Some Items to Reusable Containers.

I love the look of pretty pantries where every single item is in a matching, labeled container. But it’s important to be selective and realistic when deciding which items to place in reusable containers, and which to leave in their original packaging. If you plan to transfer too many items, it will be hard to keep up after each grocery shopping trip. Instead, choose those staple items that you have in your pantry at all times, and which are otherwise hard to store {due to inconvenient size or packaging}.

For example, our pantry shelves are just a bit too short for cereal boxes to stand upright, and when turned on their side, the contents often ended up spilling out. To solve this problem, I utilized the same plastic canisters that I used for organizing all of our latex paint in our utility room. I love these canisters because of the built-in handle and because they are an excellent value {only $1.99 for the 2 quart size and $2.99 for the gallon}. The larger canisters are the perfect size to hold a full, large box of cereal, and when stacked three deep on the pantry shelf, these canisters allow me to store three varieties of cereal in very little space.

I also used these same plastic canisters to contain various staples – like pasta, rice, flour, sugar and other dry goods. Since most of these items originally come in bags that are not easy to reseal and not easy to store on shelves, I prefer having transferring them to canisters that allow me to more efficiently utilize my shelf space, and to quickly see how much I have left at any given time {making it easier to add items to my grocery list when I’m starting to run low}.

PANTRY ORGANIZING TIP #4: USE EVERY AVAILABLE INCH

No matter the size of your pantry, you can make the most of it by taking advantage of every available inch – including floor space, the walls, and the back of the door!

Don’t Let Floor Space Go Unused.

Prior to our pantry makeover, the floor space had become a dumping ground for anything and everything {whether it belonged in the pantry or not}. With 24″ inches of height below the bottom shelf, this was a lot of real estate that I needed to utilize, and the best solution I found were the Like-It brand stacking drawers. I purchased enough of these drawers, in various sizes, to fill nearly all of the space, leaving open just enough space on the left side to stack extra beverages {finally, no more cans of pop freezing and exploding in our garage!}.

Once I had the drawers in place, I had to think long and hard about how to best utilize them. I determined that with two young kids {at that time the boys were nine month old and a two year old}, the drawers would be the perfect place to store bibs and baby/toddler foods {like fruit and veggie pouches}. These were items that were previously taking up a lot of room on our shelves, but since we’ll slowly be transitioning away from these foods over the years, I didn’t want to plan the entire pantry space around them.

As the boys get older, it will be easy to repurpose these drawers without having to reorganize the entire pantry, and in the meantime, my toddler-age sons love the independence of being able to help pick their own snacks {although I still control their access with a childproof doorknob lock}.

As I said, I wanted to use every available inch of my pantry space, so this meant even taking advantage of the extra five inches between the top of the drawers and the bottom of the lowest shelf.

One of my challenges has always been finding a place to store potatoes, but I found a shallow, mesh basket that fits perfectly on top of the drawers and provides a spot for potatoes and uncut onions.

To further utilize the space above the drawers, two canisters turned on their sides hold my sons’ favorite snacks – whole wheat goldfish crackers and pretzel crackers.

Utilize Any Available Wall Space.

Of course, when looking for more storage space, you can never ignore the walls. There is about 18″ of space between our pantry door and the front of the shelves, leaving a narrow strip of wall to the right and left of the shelves.

As I completed phase 1 of our pantry makeover, I started brainstorming ways to use that wall space, and I determine that the space to the right would be a perfect spot to install spice racks.

You can read the details about our pantry spice racks in this post, but {spoiler alert} installing 7 narrow spice racks on the pantry wall allowed us to clear off an entire long shelf in one of our cupboards! There’s nothing better than gaining more storage space!

On the other side of the pantry, I hung two DIY chalkboard clipboards {featuring my boys’ own artwork} which we use for notes and preschool reminders, and I added two Command hooks for hanging my sons’ lunch bags.

Put the Back of the Pantry Door to Use.

The back of the pantry door is another prime piece of real estate that should be ignored {this is true of the closet doors throughout your house!}. There are many ways you can use the back of a pantry door – including adding storage, like the Container Store’s door rack systems.

We decided to use the back of our door to hang a large bulletin board, which provides us a place to hang our calendar, display cards, and keep track of invitations. You can read all about our pantry door bulletin board in this post.

PANTRY ORGANIZING TIP #5: ADD PRETTY LABELS, BUT KEEP IT DURABLE AND FLEXIBLE

Finally, let’s talk about labels. Once all of my baskets, canisters, and drawers were full, it was time to label everything. I know this isn’t news to any of you – but labeling is SO important! Obviously I’m not the only one using this pantry, so labeling helps to ensure that everyone can quickly find what they need and that things get put back in the right places. Click here for tutorials on each of the three types of labels I used in our pantry, and for free printable labels!

Labeling Baskets.

I firmly believe that organization can be pretty, and I know that if I make the extra effort to make a space pretty, I’ll be much more motivated to keep it up. For that reason, I wanted to keep the pantry labels pretty, but a since the baskets will be constantly moved on and off of the shelves, it was also vital that my labels be durable. By tying the labels to the baskets with baker’s twine, they can easily be replaced if we later want to change the contents of the baskets.

Labeling Canisters

Since I need to wash the clear storage canisters from time to time, I opted to label the lids rather than the fronts of the containers. This way the canisters can be popped in the dishwasher, and the lids can be quickly wiped down. And since I also anticipate that the contents of the canisters will change over time, I used colorful, I made them easy to relabel.

Labeling Drawers.

Additionally, because the contents of the drawers on the floor of the pantry will change over time, I wanted to ensure that the labels could be easily switched out as well. I considered using sticker paper, but I have found that the adhesive is strong and it can be difficult to cleanly remove. Instead, I used printable window decals to label the drawer fronts, assuring that the labels will stay firmly in place until I choose to remove them, but will be easy to remove when the time comes to update them.

When I completed this pantry makeover last year, I was thrilled to have it looking clean and prettied-up! More than a year later, I am thrilled because the organizing systems I put in place are still functioning perfectly! When it’s time to make my grocery list, it’s quick and easy to check each bin and make a list without ever over purchasing, and when I return from shopping, it’s quick and easy to unpack the groceries because everything has a place.

SHOP THIS ORGANIZED PANTRY:

I know that’s a lot of information, so let me summarize…

Five steps to an organized & pretty pantry:

1. Start with a Clean Slate

2. Sort, Categorize, and Form a Plan

Categorize
Measure Twice
Place Daily Use Items at Eye Level

3. Choose Appropriate Containers

Baskets are a Great Alternative to a Custom Pantry System
Use Containers Within Containers
Lazy Susans are Great, But Not Ideal for Cans
Consider Transferring Some Items to Reusable Containers

4. Use Every Available Inch of Space

Don’t Let Floor Space Go Unused
Utilize Any Available Wall Space
Use the Back of the Pantry Door

5. Add Pretty Labels, But Keep it Durable and Flexible

Labeling Baskets
Labeling Canisters
Labeling Drawers

And finally, one more look at the before and after:

Click here for the pantry label tutorials, including some free printables!

The post How to Organize a Small Reach-In Pantry appeared first on Blue i Style.

The Best Ways to Organize Under the Kitchen Sink

blueistyle — Wed, 30 Jul 2014 21:46:00 +0000

Organizing under the kitchen sink may be one of the most challenging spots in the entire house! Not only are you dealing with pipes, but in most cases also a garbage disposal. There is often little usable space, but so many purposes that this little space needs to serve.

It took me nearly six years {wow, that’s embarrassing}, but I have finally taken control of the space under our kitchen sink. It’s not only organized, but I might even dare to call it pretty.

We’ve been living with this new system for a couple of months now, and it’s still working well, so I decided it was time to share my best under kitchen sink organizer solutions to utilize every available inch!

Ok, so now that you’ve had a glimpse of the organized space, let’s back up so I can show you what I started with…

As bad as it looks in the photo, take my word for it that it was even worse than you can see. There were things shoved behind the pipes in the back corners that I hadn’t seen since the day we moved in. The situation was desperate!

But the after makes me oh SO happy!

Over the years I purchased several different under sink storage systems that were designed to fit around the pipes under a kitchen sink, but each time I got one home I quickly discovered that it didn’t work for the configuration of my sink. Our sink is located in our island, so all of our pipes go down through the bottom of the cabinet, rather than going out the back of the cabinet, meaning they take up even more space than normal.

I finally got serious about it. I took detailed measurements of the available space under the sink and drew myself a diagram showing the available floor space as well as how many inches of height clearance I had in each area.

With that diagram in hand, I headed to the Container Store. I looked at nearly every bin, shelf and drawer in the store to determine which would fit and would provide the maximum amount of storage.

This post contains affiliate links. If you buy something I recommend, you’ll pay the same price, but I may receive a small commission to help keep Blue i Style free.

In the end, I came home with three Like-It White Short Medium Modular Drawers. They are normally $30 each, but I got lucky and they were on sale that day. Although, at that point I would have gladly paid full price just to get something that actually fit the space!

These Like-It stacking drawers won out not only because of their dimensions, but also because I discovered that white “lid” can be removed.

There was only one spot under the sink – on the far right – where the full cabinet height was unimpeded by pipes. To take full advantage of this space, I stacked up two drawers. By removing the top of the upper drawer, I was able to use the drawer for taller spray bottles and cleaners. The drawer still slides in and out smoothly with the lid removed, allowing me easy access to even those cleaners at the very back.

In the lower drawer, I store additional cleaning supplies.

I used small plastic bins {purchased in the Target One Spot for 2/$1} to contain striped clean dish rags and brightly colored kids washcloths. I don’t like using the same rags that we use to wipe up messes for cleaning little faces, which is why I have both dishrags and washcloths under the sink.

A third small, plastic bin holds Plink garbage disposal cleaners/deodorizers {the things that look like marbles}. Do you guys use these? They are my favorite! Each color is a different scent and they really help to keep you garbage disposal smelling fresh!

At the back of that drawer, I used another plastic bin {also from the Target One Spot} to hold small bottles of items like Goo Gone, Jet Dry, and stainless steel polisher.

I used one more drawer right in the center of the cabinet. It fits perfectly below my garbage disposal, and sits just in front of the pipes that go into the bottom of the cabinet.

The center drawer holds sponges, scouring pads, Magic Erasers, and scrubbing brushes.

Tucked along the side of the drawer are extra garbage bags and an extra pair of cleaning gloves.

As you can see, I added cute labels to the front of each drawer using adhesive vinyl left over from other projects. I cut the letters on my Cricut and placed them using transfer tape. You can read the details about making labels like these in my post about labeling my bath toy storage.

To take advantage of every available inch under the sink, I store dishwasher tablets and trash bags on top of the center drawer {right in front of the garbage disposal}.

The box that our 13 gallon trash bags come in was too large to fit in front of the garbage disposal, so I removed the roll of trash bags from the box and placed them in a Kleenex box with the top cut off. The Kleenex box is the perfect size to fit the available space, it keeps the roll of trash bags from coming unrolled, and it looks darn cute to boot!

We use dishwasher tablets rather than liquid or powder detergent. I love how they clean, but they are extremely poisonous if a kid gets his hands on them! The container the tablets come in just has a flip top lid that is not at all child proof, so I relocated them the tablets to a plastic canister with a screw top lid.

We have used these same Mainstay plastic canisters {sold at WalMart for just a couple of dollars each} for lots of other projects {including organizing our paint, and storing some small kids blocks}. Having used these before, I know that the lid is just large enough that our young toddler sons can’t yet get their hands around them to unscrew the lid. By the time they are able to remove the lids, they will also be a bit older and better able to understand that the dishwasher tablets are a no-touch item! Of course, I don’t want to take any chances with these tablets, or any of the other cleaners under the sink that could be dangerous, so we also have a childproof lock on the cabinet door. You can’t be too safe!

Between the drawers, I left just enough of a gap to slide in a few paper bags. I like to be able to reuse these bags, so I created a designated spot to prevent them from cluttering up the space under the sink.

On the far left of the cabinet, there are hoses and a water control valve that sit just a bit further forward that the other pipes, making the space to shallow for another drawer. Instead, I used the space to stack our Boon Grass Drying Racks {thank goodness we are finally done with bottles, but I still use these drying racks on occasion for small Tupperware containers and sippy cups}. And that is our silicone wine glass drying mat that you see rolled up and tucked to the left of the Boon drying racks.

We recently started participating in Denver’s new compost program, so we now have to have special compostable trash bags in addition to our regular white trash bags. The box full of these bags fits nicely in front of the drying rack. Speaking of which, did you see how I labeled our compost can, as well as our trash and recycling to help guests make sense of our three different receptacles? {Details on the labels can be found here.}

Even with all of the storage space provided by the drawers, I still had a few more things that I needed to make room for under the sink. We try to remember our reusable, fabric grocery bags when we go shopping, but sometimes we still end up coming home with plastic bags. These bags can’t be placed in our recycling bins that are collected by the city, but stores like Target do collect the bags for recycling. I needed a place to contain all of our plastic bags until I reuse them or drop them off for recycling.

Sharing our kitchen with two little boys also quadruples the number of dishrags we use, not to mention dirty bibs. Our laundry room is on the second floor, and our hampers where we sort our laundry are in our master bedroom on the third floor. It doesn’t make sense for my to carry each dish towel and bib up to the laundry one by one {or maybe I’m just lazy}, so the dirty kitchen laundry used to just pile up under the sink.

To solve these two challenges, I utilized the space on the “walls” of the cabinet. I purchased two Variera Trash Can from Ikea ($3.99/each). They are a great size for plastic bags and kitchen laundry. I used small command hooks to hang these baskets above the hoses on the left side of my cabinet, and I cut more labels from adhesive vinyl using my Cricut to make it clear what belongs in each basket.

It’s quick and easy to lift these baskets off of the Command hooks. I carry the dirty rags and bibs up to the laundry room in this basket, and take the basket full of bags with me when I’m making a trip to Target so that I can empty it into the bag recycling bin up by the registers.

Finally, I utilized the space on the inside of the cabinet doors for additional storage. The door on the left has an over the door paper towel holder.

The door on the right has an over the door towel bar, from which I hang a dish towel as well as a pair of cleaning gloves.

How cute are those gloves by the way? I found them here.

In order to keep the gloves from constantly slipping off of the towel bar, I punched a small hole in the top of each and inserted an eyelet in each. I then looped a small binder ring over the towel bar and slid the glove eyelets through the ring. For more on how to set eyelets, you can read all the instructions in my post about how I created a fabric and paint swatch kit.

Whew! So that’s the story of how we fit a whole lot of storage into a little bit of space in between pipes and hoses under our kitchen sink. To get a full appreciation of how much this space changed, let’s take a look at the before and afters side by side, shall we?

UPDATE: It’s been more than three years since I first organized under the kitchen sink, and the good news is that it has stayed organized even since then! It still looks just the same today! Based on this success, here are my top tips for organizing under your kitchen sink!

11 TIPS FOR ORGANIZING UNDER THE KITCHEN SINK & USING AVAILABLE INCH OF SPACE:

Take detailed measurements of the available space, including width, depth and height around various pipes {maybe even draw a diagram if it helps you}
With measurements in hand, spend some time at the store looking at all of the drawer, bin and shelf options to find those products that will allow you to best maximize your space
If purchasing stackable drawers, consider whether the “lid” can be removed to accommodate taller spray bottles and cleaners
Once you’ve found your storage containers, sort the items under the sink. Group like items together and relocate any items that don’t belong in the kitchen or under the sink
Use smaller bins to contain items within your larger bins or drawers
Consider transferring dishwasher tablets to an clear, airtight container that allows you to see when you are running low, and with a lid that helps keep them out of kids’ hands
If you don’t have a place to store them elsewhere, make room under the sink for paper and plastic bags for reuse or until you can recycle them
Designate a space for dirty rags and dish towels (as well as bibs, if you have babies or toddlers)
Don’t forget to take advantage of the available “wall” space inside the cabinet, as well as on the inside of the cabinet doors
Add labels to make it easy for everyone in the house to find what they need and to put
things back in the right place
With so many dangerous items stored below the sink, be sure to add a child lock to keep
the kids safe!

The post The Best Ways to Organize Under the Kitchen Sink appeared first on Blue i Style.

Labeling Trash, Recycling & Compost Bins

blueistyle — Fri, 04 Jul 2014 14:00:00 +0000

Right after we moved into our house we swapped out the single pull out trash can in the kitchen for a double pull-out system that allows us to have both trash and recycling hidden within a single cabinet.

Recently, Denver began a new compost program and we are excited to be participating, but this mean adding one more trash can. Since we
had no space for an additional can within a cabinet or under the kitchen sink, we opted for a stainless steel flip-top can at the end of our counter.

This can has been working perfectly for our compostable waste because the lid fits tightly and helps contain smells.

When we only had cans for trash and recycling, we would simply tell our guests that they were in the cabinet by the sink, and we would let them know that the front can is for garbage and the back for recycling.

However, having this new can visible at the end of the counter begun causing confusion for guests because they would see it and just assume it was our trash – then we end up with non-compostable trash in the can, and I wind up having to dig through it to sort it. YUCK! I had to find a solution!

I decided that the easiest way to solve the problem was to label the compost can, and while I was at it, I went ahead and labeled our trash and recycling as well.

Since I already had my Cricut cutter out to make alphabet magnets
for our magnetic chalkboard wall, I quickly cut the compost letters out of some left over adhesive vinyl. But this project certainly doesn’t require for a Cricut or other die cutting machine. You could instead just purchase some letter stickers from your favorite craft store – easy peasy!

For details on how I cut and applied the vinyl labels, see the tutorial for the similar labels I made for our bathtub toy storage.

Because our trash and recycling cans are hidden in a pull out cabinet, there is no way to visibly label the cans themselves. Instead, I opted for three quarter inch tall letter stickers on the upper edge of the cabinet door.
On the left side, I spelled out “Front Trash.”

And on the left I spelled out “Back Recycling.”

Now when we have family and friends visiting, no one will be
confused by our three separate receptacles.

Five minutes to save myself from digging through trash and
food waste to resort…that is five minutes WELL spent!

Have a wonderful holiday weekend! If you follow me on Instagram, I’ll be sharing lots of pics of our 4th of July fun! You can find my Instagram feed by clicking on the Instagram logo at the top of the sidebar on the right.

The post Labeling Trash, Recycling & Compost Bins appeared first on Blue i Style.

11 Tips for Organizing Under the Kitchen Sink	5 Steps to an Organized & Pretty Pantry	Pretty Pantry Labels + Free Printable	Ombre Spice Racks on Narrow Pantry Wall
Organized Baking Drawer	Sippy Cup and Water Bottle Organization	Pantry Door Bulletin Board	Filing System for Menus & Recipes
Baby Bottle Basket	Managing Incoming Mail & Kitchen Paper Piles	Creating a Mudroom in the Kitchen