Cups, glasses, mugs, and bottles:
I’m going to be blunt. You don’t need 17 plastic cups. Well, maybe if you have 15 kids. So get rid of some of them. The cups, not the kids. I mean, I’m not judging. Tough times. We’re all tightening our belts a little, and kids are expensive….
On second thought, clear them out of the cabinet or cupboard they’re in but hold on to them. We are going to repurpose them for another free project. While you’re at it, go through everything else you use to put beverages in and toss things that are not part of a set or don’t get regularly used.
Now that you’ve got a little more space to work with in your cabinets, let’s organize! Group like things with like. Use the vertical space by stacking cups if necessary. And if you decided to keep the kids after all, put their cups towards the front so that they’re less likely to mess the cabinet up while trying to reach their cups.
Baking sheets, cake pans, cutting boards, muffin tins, etc.:
I would hazard a guess and say that most of us have some extra nails or screws hanging around somewhere. Grab yourself a few, along with a hammer or cordless drill, and head over to a lower or upper cabinet where you tend to keep your baking sheets, cake pans, cutting boards, muffin tins, and other similar items. Carefully measure and mark 2-3 spots running the depth of your cabinet. Insert nails or screws, and you have a free vertical organizer! Everything will be much easier to access now and stay so organized! If you’re going to doing this with breakable items, try coating the top of the screws or nails in glue, nail polish, or puff paint to help protect them.
Under the sink:
Maybe you noticed while you were organizing your baking sheets and cake pans that one or two of them were like yours truly and a *little* past their prime? Well grab that sucker and breath new life into it with whatever you’ve got! Contact paper, spray paint, craft paint, wallpaper, or just a good old fashioned bit of elbow grease. Or grab a tray, a basket, a box, whatever you’ve got, and stick your cleaning products and whatever else you keep under the sink in it! Add some felt or felt pads to the bottom to help it glide more easily, and you’ve got the next best thing to a drawer under your sink! No more droppin it like it’s hot just to get reach those disinfectant wipes. Unless that’s your jam, then get low, girl.
And yes, this isn’t a kitchen sink, but same idea.
Dish towels, rags, microfiber towels, etc.:
Clear out your drawer or cabinet where you keep these every day necessities, and wipe it down. I probably should have suggested that for everything I mentioned thus far. Oops. Anyways, now is also a good time to give them a good bleaching or oxyclean soak, so if it has been a while, do that. And toss out any that are in bad condition. I give you permission to spend the three dollars on replacements.
To put them back in the drawer, I like to file them in. How you fold them will depend on how deep the drawer is. I personally like to fold mine in thirds, and then in half, and then in half again. Like so:
You can also fold them and then roll them. Organizing them by type and by color is a great way to make the drawer feel more organized as well.
Tupperware:
Gather up ALL your Tupperware. Pull them out of the drawer or cabinet (and wipe it down) and lay them out on the counter. If any are dirty, in the fridge, sitting on the table, or in your car, grab them and give em a quick wash. It’s important that you have all your Tupperware together. If any are missing lids, they aren’t invited to the party, so find another use for them (I’ll share a few later) or chuck them. If you haven’t found the lid at this point (or maybe there’s a lid but no container) it isn’t going to happen, so it’s time to part ways.
Take all the lids off the paired up sets and set them aside. Stack the containers inside one another. Like with like, and nestle smaller randoms inside one another. Do the same with the lids. When putting the lids back into the drawer or cabinet, I like to stack the lids vertically. I often use one of the larger containers that inevitably has lost its lid to hold them, or to hold the very tiny pieces of Tupperware that tend to get lost like the little cups for dressings, dips, and sauces.
And that’s five! No money was spent, and your kitchen is more organized and functions better already! Your future self will be thanking your past self for days.