Declutter Project: KonMari Method, Part 2

Most of the projects I start because of convenience. For example, over the weekend I decided to tackle the kitchen since my son was playing and I can still watch him while going through the stuff in the kitchen. It went relatively faster than I thought it would!

Kitchen (Part 1) 

Started: 8/1/15
Finished: 8/3/15

The worst parts of my kitchen were:

• the pantry
• extra cabinet space (accumulated junk)
• the drawers (accumulates papers and misc stuff). 

Here is how I tackled things:

• The Pantry: I realized that I was putting a lot of "non food" items in the pantry. I removed ALL non-food, baking, bags, etc. 
• I had a lot of expired foods, since they were buried in the back of my pantry. Bummer. These were trashed. 
• The spices were taking up so much room! I moved them to the extra cabinet space instead. I used old shoe boxes and toddler food stackers in the cabinet and it helped to organize all the spices and cooking items. 
• Moved all grocery bags and trash bags to under the sink. Also, got rid of most of them. Why do I need hundreds of grocery bags? 
• I reorganized my cabinets (emptied everything, got rid of stuff for donation, and then put things back in a more ordered fashion). 
• Got rid of my cookbooks by giving them to a friend. I haven't used them in a decade (or more!). 
• I collect Shot Glasses and they were just sitting on top of my refrigerator. I'm not ready to discard those yet, so I put them in an empty cabinet for now. 
• I removed pictures, papers from the refrigerator -- and threw away some broken magnets (not sure why I kept them!). 

A few years ago I did a big clean up of my kitchen. It helped that I did this, as there wasn't much to discard where kitchen appliances were concerned. The places that were the biggest mess were the most used areas that just seem to accumulate everything that comes into the house! I need a better method to keep things organized.

With all the changes, the kitchen is more functional now and things more easily accessible. Things used more often are easier to get to. I have a lot of room in my pantry to work with.

Donated Bags: 3
Trash: 3

Everything is in the cabinets leaving the counters clear, for the most part. Only things left on the counters: knife block, candle warmer, paper towels, tissues, cup of coins (need to do something with this soon). Feels good to have the entire kitchen organized / clean! 

Project Totals: 

• Donated bags: 16
• Recycled: 2 bags 
• Trash: 6  
• Shred: TBD

See my Decluttering Project progress: KonMari Method Plan.