Kitchen Cabinet Before and Afters (plus you can link up yours!)

Remember how last week I vowed to clean up/organize my kitchen cabinets? Well, I probably wouldn’t have gotten around to it otherwise, but because I told you I was going to, I managed to make the time.

Telling you guys my to-do plans is just so helpful.

I don’t have before pictures of all my cabinets because I ended up cleaning more of them than I planned to. The, “Woo! Look at how clean that cabinet is!” feeling was getting kinda addicting.

I didn’t take a before picture of this cabinet, but it was a mess. You know how spice cabinets can be.

I’ve cleaned it up quite a few times before, but it gets screwed up again awfully fast. This time, though, something is different. See those plastic containers?

They’ve got grouped spices in them…the small one has sweet spices and the other has Italian-type seasonings.

So, when I need to bake something sweet, I can just pull out that container, and the rest of the shelf stays neat. Marvy-fab.

If I could have scrounged up another container, I’d have put my chili powder/cumin/cayenne type spices together too.

I read about this idea in a Cook’s Illustrated magazine, and I think it’s brilliant. I have real hope for my spice shelf now! And I’m happy to have a use for my old plastic leftover containers (I’m a Pyrex girl now.)

Ooh! And do you see what that is up there on the top shelf??

Empty space. Oh yes. I love it when I declutter so well that there’s empty space.

I organized the cabinets above my sink too, so that my baking tools are easier to access. I do own more Pyrex measuring cups than that, just so you know…there were a bunch in the dishwasher when I took the photo.

My cookbook cabinet is often a cluttery mess because that space on top of my cookbooks is a very handy place to shove papers of various sorts. No more, though!

The snack-food cabinet was in a things-fall-out-when-you-open it state before. And my chocolate covered marshamallow snowmen were just getting buried in the mess. Mustn’t have that.

I’m so happy with this cabinet…there’s plenty of room for my granola container now. Yay!

(can you tell the sun went down before I finished taking pictures??)

This under-the-counter cabinet wasn’t in super bad shape.

But I did neaten it up a bit. Plus, since I used some of my plastic containers to organize the spice cabinet, that freed up a bit of space here.

The cabinet I most dreaded cleaning is the one that holds the majority of our food.

I can’t be the only one who gets to this point in the organizing process and then wants to give up.

Yeah. Dear heavens.

I did manage to carry on, though, and I got everything sorted and put back properly. I’m most pleased about the tea section…before, I had it all on the very top shelf and it was such a pain to get to. So of course, when it was time to put the tea boxes away, I just kind of threw them up there haphazardly. Now that I can reach the tea shelf more easily, I think I’ll be better able to maintain order.

Ok! So, I’ve gone through all my cabinets now except for two…the one under the sink (yuck) and the one above my fridge. I’ll probably try to tackle those this week.

I know some of you were planning on cleaning up your cabinets with me this week, so if you blogged your before and after photos, share your link below so we can ooh and aah over your work!

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Today’s 365 post: Baking With Lisey

Joshua’s 365 post: I’m not sure why….