Mission Organization

I've made a goal to get ORGANIZED. See, I have a dirty little secret. I'm clutter-phobic - on the outside. Confused? In the things I see day to day, I HATE clutter: knick-knacks, unnecessary wall hangings, ornate decorations that just sit there for no reason. A clean, functional space makes my heart flutter. Like this space.

But when it comes to behind closed doors, I'm a MESS! Remember that Friends episode with Monica and her secret closet? That's me. But I'm trying to cure this disease.

Katie over at Hyper Homemaker has made it easier with her Ultimate Fall Cleaning Challenge! Today's challenge was to tackle the kitchen, and that's exactly what I did.

So I cringe as I show this to you, but here are my before and afters!

{click on images to see larger}

POTS & PANS

My first tackle was my pots and pans. We have great pull out drawers, but given our tiny kitchen it's still hard to keep these drawers organized. But I manged to do it after only around 15 minutes!

PANTRY

Second was the pantry. This one took a little longer, but was definitely worth it! I love cleaning out the pantry, it's such a good feeling. (ps- Katie I think I rival you for smallest pantry!)

We've actually done a pretty good job of keeping our glasses and dishes organized, so I'd thought I'd share with you our system (those wire shelves are the BEST!)

KITCHEN CABINETS


Believe it or not, it took me less than an hour to tackle both these projects. So I decided it was a good idea to move on to the hall closet.

The hall closet was one of the most cluttered spaces in the entire house. It was the place that we put everything we didn't know where to put. (That and the garage, but that's another story and another chore for another day).

Since we don't technically use coats here in CA, I decided to make this closet our....... SHOE closet! We've spent too many days hauling piles of shoes upstairs to find them collecting back downstairs by the stairs. So I figured - what the heck, why don't we just store them downstairs in the "coat" closet??

I'm so glad I did this - it turned out so great and I know it will make our lives simpler. (Plus we can practice taking of our shoes off right when we get in the door to help keep our floors clean, an added bonus!)

ENTRY/HALL CLOSET


All in all it was a very productive day and organization makes me feel so much better!