I am in the midst of writing one of my next books, The Get Yourself Organized Project, and I could use your help in the area of the kitchen…
- What is your biggest organizing challenge?
- What is something you have tried, organization-wise, that has worked for you that you would love to share with the rest of the world.
Now let me be very specific. If you want to share how to color-code your spices, please pick up a Martha Stewart magazine and leave me be. However, if you are a real person and live a real life and have some real advice, I would LOVE to hear it.
I will be asking in different areas of life over the next few weeks. Can’t wait to hear your answers…
AND, if I use your question, or your great idea in the book, you will get to be a published author (and a free copy of the book.) How cool would that be?
So please, share.
And if you were looking for one spiffy idea on organizing, I will share it in tomorrow’s post.
Past winners:
The Winner of THE ME PROJECT is : Becky and the Winner of Arlene Pellicane’s fab book is:Linda Carlblom
Email sunnie at kathilipp.com with your name, address and what you won and she will get it right out to you.
Hi Kathi,
I think organizing can quickly bleed into – “I will do everything myself”. Rarely good.
As moms, we need to think about what we want our kids to learn about organization and life. We can take advantage of having free labor and teach kids to be responsible for their own stuff and actually help out! I think that would be an interesting chapter for your next book – when do you know you need help? from your family? from an organizer? from a psychiatrist?!
Also, if we can “let go” a bit and appreciate contribution instead of perfection, we might find that one of our kids is really good at organizing (I am not), and would be happy to come up with a new “system” – tupperware storage, for example. I believe in chores for kids as a way of teaching contribution and responsibility. And that chores are AT LEAST as important as homework, and figuring out how to get both done is a life skill!
I also try not to store mail in the kitchen – it just multiplies and makes everything look messy. My current system is fatally flawed, but kind of boils down to put the bills on my husband’s desk, recycle at the curb, and throw away anything I think I might look at “later”. Or I sometimes put things in a pile (or a basket). I often find I throw it all away after 3 months. (I apparently need the comfort of knowing i could look at it if I wanted to). Only once have I regretted not having that Bed Bath and Beyond coupon that I tossed, knowing there was nothing I needed at the moment!
2. we are “at capacity” so if I buy something new, something old has to come out of the cabinet.
We have a separate pot rack right over the kitchen sink. This is where our ‘good’ frypans live so their non-stick coatings don’t get ruined. We also keep things where we use them so we don’t get side-tracked crossing the room to get a needed ingredient. As for the plastic container issue, we keep the lids on the containers. We bought Lock -n- Lock containers that are leakproof and use only these for storing leftovers and for our lunches. We recycle all the others, usually sending goodies to my son in college. We have pared down and use what we have, which is probably the best tip of all. God provides all we need; and that includes storage space!
My tips: 1. I clean my kitchen as I go, so it doesn’t seem as overwhelming. 2. I organize my pantry by grouping like items (i.e. canned veggies together, all baking supplies on the same shelf, etc). That way I know exactly where to find things and it makes creating a shopping list much easier.
I wish I knew how to arrange the kitchen so that the kids can help me put away the dishes. Most of our cupboards are up too high for even our 9 year old to reach without a stool. And do I really want them using a stool while putting away my Corelle?
I am not too worried about everything appearing “neat as a pin”, but being able to find things, move around in our home and clean without a lot of extra effort in moving things.
I love to send cards and notes of encouragement often. I was using a box to store everything in and then I went to a file box. BUT, about 5 -6 years ago, I realized that an over-the-door shoe organizer (with the clear plastic pockets) was the perfect “card shop” for me! I have the cards sorted by occasion (birthdays, sympathy, blank, Thank You, etc). When I have a few moments, it’s very easy to get to the card I want, write a short note, sign it and mail it!
I love baskets, boxes and bags. They keep our family organized! Everyone has a bag for their activities! The girls each have bags for their own piano books, backpacks for school, I have a bag for MOPS, for church, for work. In the house, I specifically have boxes to put papers/mail in until I can file them. We have a daily goal of keeping our kitchen table, the island and the stairway clear. Maybe in a week we’ll add another space that needs to be cleared daily.
Lastly, I recently moved ALL of our dishes to the pantry and all the boxed and canned goods to the kitchen cabinets. This way, the girls can help with setting the table and putting away dishes from the dishwasher AND the food items are within an arm’s reach for getting the things we need when putting together a meal!
Ugh – the dreaded plastics cabinet! There are so many items down there that my hubby won’t even open the doors – he’s afraid of the inevitable landslide! One of the ways that I fill his love tank is by organizing the plastics cabinet! I wish there was a better way to keep things straight down there but none of my plans seem to fit. I’ve bought all different size containers, I’ve bought the sets that will supposedly be “the only set you’ll ever need” and nothing is working for us. Honeslty most of our leftovers go in these great plastic containers that the takeout comes in from our local Chinese restaraunt. They are shallow enough that the food cools in the fridge quickly, they are flat for easy stacking in the fridge and they have clear lids for easy identification!
1. Kids clothes. Kids clothes! Kids clothes!! We live in a four season state, so I have to do a big switching of the clothes at least twice a year. I also have 3 boys so I try to save as much as I can to pass on to the younger ones. Needless to say, there is always a box or rubbermaid container with clothes that are too big or too small. It is a never ending cycle! I have found that if I keep a designated box for things that my boys have outgrown in their closet, that does help. At least there is a place to put it. I also continue to box things up to store in the attic for a later time!
Hey!! This is so exciting! I want to know how to organize my mail. I know this isn’t really PART of my kitchen, but every day my husband (or I) come home and plop a pile of mail on the counter and then it sits there and sits there and sits there and clutters my kitchen. Can’t WAIT to read this book!
I am a mother of 3 an a military wife of 18 years. As you can guess we move every 2 years and when I think I have gotten organized we are getting ready to move and it’s to another house not the same size;( It’s hard to keep organized for me in every room. But the kitchen is the heart of the home an I love to cook so when I got married I started a collection of Tupperware for my cabinets and that has helped and the movers will move my food items as well.
But I struggle with the problem of finding a place for everything when I move. It doesn’t always fit in the next home. So I have also learned to purge like the other ladies have said. To learn to live with less. And to group my like items together. That makes them look better on the counter like stations. My coffee pot and toaster and the coffee canster are right together with the cream and sugar. And the mixer with the utensils. But I grouped the like utensils together. All the wood ones and all the black ones. This makes them look nic on the counter. My biggest challenge is the moving having different homes.
Many blessing on your new book. Aloha Shawna
I am a busy mom of 3, between the ages of 2-9. Of course, I would love to be completely organized all the time, but really? There’s dinner to be made, homework to be done and Candyland to be played –all in my kitchen! My biggest organizing nemesis is trying to keep all the non-kitchen things from finding their way into my kitchen (mail, hair accessories, coloring pictures…) Any bright ideas on keeping non-kitchen stuff outta my kitchen would be much appreciated.
As for a tip, here’s one that kinda works for me. Like I said, I would love to be the woman with the magazine-shoot-worthy pantry (you know, the one where all the cans and boxes are arranged alphabetically AND according to height AND by food genre!) What I have instead is much simpler and works for me in this stage of life. I have 6 deep shelves in my pantry cupboards:
– On the top shelf I keep big boxes that I can see and grab from below (cereal mostly).
– On the next shelf I keep bottles and jars (sauces, olive oil, etc.) and pasta and rice.
– On the next shelf I keep all my canned goods (soups, veggies).
– On the next, I keep spices and small baking items (baking soda, sprinkles) –just below eye level, so I don’t have the crouch to see them.
– On the next shelf, bigger baking items (flour, sugar, baking mixes) as well as coffee, tea etc.
– And on the bottom shelf: snacks! (crackers, granola bars, chips). I keep them accessible so I don’t have to get up everytime one of my kids gets the nag to nosh 🙂
Someday, I’ll get out the label-maker and make it all official… but for now, it helps to unload the groceries and just get them on the right shelves. Somehow I manage to find everything when I need it!
As a mom of many, I am always looking for simple. I put a white storage shelf from Home Depot, the kind that has doors with hanging rack on one side, and shelves on the other in my kitchen against the fridge. (I have a spacious kitchen). I put almost all of the dishes (and few food items) in that shelf, across the room from the cabinets and dishwasher. This served several purposed for me:
1) top shelf holds most used appliances within easy reach
2) cut doors to make additional shelving at height I needed so there is one shelf for coffee cups, one for bowls, one for plates, one for cutting boards (doesn’t need much height); one for cookie sheets (again, not much height needed) and 3 shelves that I put plastic bins in 1 bin is soley for sippy cups/lids/stoppers; the second is for plastic drinking cups for the family and the bottom one is for water bottles/travel mugs. That is just one side of the shelf unit!! The other has two shelves the correct height to hold loaves of bread without being smashed, and the wide plastic drawer unit to hold the fun gadgets (apple corer or slicer, greater, corn holder plates and holders, chopsticks, cheese slicer, ice cream scoops, cookie dough scoop, etc. Did I mention Iove kitchen gadgets! LOL) On top of this unit is a container for potatoes and one for onions. So this unit hold A LOT in small space.
3)kids have access to everything they need without climbing on the counters to reach up high or me standing on my head to get things down low from lower cabinets.
4) kids have access to everything they need without being in the area of the sink/stove to be underfoot while I am cooking.
I made a chart of each cabinet and what belongs in it and put it inside of the cabinet door for that cabinet. Example: Top Dessert cups
Middle brown sugar/ powder sugar/ flour/ cornmean/ marshmellows/
bottom sugar/ koolaid/ tea bags/ hot chocolate
Now I don’t go nuts and it has to be in that order, but in that cabinet, preferably on that shelf when possible. This takes away the excuse of “I don’t know where it goes”~ didn’t take much time, but has helped allow everyone to do their part to put things away.
I dislike having to hunt for things, so my drawers have lots of bins/baskets/containers for specific items~ potatoe peelers, measuring spoons, serving spoons, toddler silverware, etc.
My cereal and instant oatmeal (which is removed in box and put into basket) is kept in lower cabinet so kids can access it easily on Saturday mornings. Cereal bowls wit build it straws are kept with the cereal.
I loved when I had a drawer on the bottom of my range that was for storage~ I put snacks the kids could have in it. When I said it was snack time, they could get something from it. I put everything single serving in it, which meant I often repackaged into ziploc bags.
When I redo my kitchen, (who knows when that will be!) I will not have under the counter cabinets, it will be drawers. I hate standing on my head to find things~ waste of my time and energy! LOL …and things get lost in the deep, dark corners…. LOL
The addition of the under the counter cd/radio units has probably been one of my favorite! I love listening to KLove or sermons when I’m cooking! Makes it easier to spend 15 minutes here and there chatting on phone, listening to radio or cd and cleaning out a shelf or drawer.
I have my spices alphabetized. It really does help. I have one of those spinners that I put tall bottles on the bottom and short ones on the top just under the shelf. Plastic containers with lids all go in the same place and I do try to stack them according to size and shape. All of the lids, and I mean ALL lids go in a shallow square container stacked on edge like a files in a dentist’s office. Saves space and I know where the lids can be found. Labels on the freezer shelfs for different types of foods so I can find fish, poultry, meat, soups and stews easily. Of course anything in the freezer is marked with the date. In the fridge I have one large shelf for left overs. The husband makes his own left over lunches so it helps to have everything in one place for him.
What I need is to learn how to create space for the bulk items (or the multiples of sale items the spouse purchases without concern for a place to put them) that come into the house without having to purchase storage containers. The shelving I have in the pantry is very narrow in depth or so deep you loose the back items. I think I just have too many items to store. Too much junk. I read if I took one place each day, like one drawer, and eliminated 50% of the items each day I could completely declutter my kitchen. Except that I bought the junk so I don’t want to chuck it.
Help!!
One of my biggest struggles in the kitchen is keeping my recipes organized. I had piles and piles of recipes that I found online and printed out. I love to cook and try new recipes but sifting throug all of my printed recipes to find the one I was looking for was driving me crazy! My solution was to take all of my loose recipes and put them into plastic page protectors and organize them in three ring binders. To plan our menu for the week, I look through my binders and pull out the recipes I want and use them to write out my grocery list. At the end of the week I put them back into my binders and pull out new ones. One of the best things about this method is that the plastic page protectors keep my recipes from getting stained and dirty. If something drips onto the recipe while I’m cooking, I can just wipe it off!
Hi Kathi! The thing that has helped me the most is joining a cooking co-op. Basically you get together with 3 like sized (non-picky) families. Everyone gets a day of the week, and on their day cooks for all the other families. So I get dinner delivered to me 3 nights a week, and I cook 1 night. Because we all attend churches that have “Wed night dinners” we chose Mon, Tues, Thur, Friday for our nights. Then we have church on Wed night, leftovers one night, and take out one night. It is heavenly!
It also encourages you to become a better cook, exposes your family to new dishes that you wouldn’t normally make, and keeps you very organized. We plan our cooking calendar 3 months at a time, and it’s wonderful. It may sound complicated, but it is SO easy!
I have written 2 articles about the subject, if you’d like to review, you can find them here:
http://www.examiner.com/stay-at-home-moms-in-richmond/cooking-co-op-101-how-to-start-a-cooking-co-op
http://www.examiner.com/stay-at-home-moms-in-richmond/cooking-co-op-what-s-for-dinner
I learned one habit from my mother that actually stuck: clean as I cook. (I know that doesn’t sound like an “organizing” suggestion, but it prevents chaos and produces order…hope that counts!)
We’ve never lived in a house with much counter space, so when I’m making a multi-dish meal, clean-as-I-cook is vital. Once I’m done mixing muffins, for example, I squirt a bit of soap into the bowl, scrub it, rinse it, dry it, and put it away. One less big bowl in the sink!
I know some people prefer leave everything out in case they “need it again” (clutter-keeping logic!) I’d rather wash something, put it away, and go to the “trouble” of geting it back out again than end up with my sinks overflowing and my counters covered with dirty dishes (in which case I can’t even FIND that one item I might “need again”!)
The end result of clean-as-I-cook is that when I’m done cooking, my kitchen is clean! No huge mess to tackle…or try to hide from guests as they arrive for dinner. 🙂
Because we have such a small kitchen and not much counter space, whenever I was making a meal with a cookbook, I never had enough room for it and it would constantly get splattered with whatever I was making. So finally my husband got me an overhead hanging cookbook holder that attaches underneath the kitchen cabinets. The best part is if I don’t need to use it, it folds out of the way nicely, and when I do I just pull it down, place my cookbook on it and Voila, it’s off the counters! 🙂 The best present my husband ever got me! 🙂
WOW you guys – there is some great wisdom and some great help here. I am so blessed to have each of you!!!
Clean as you go! Clean as you go! Clean as you go!
I “make” my bed as soon as I get out of it (this means tugging the comforter over everything and throwing the fancy pillows on top). Not perfect – but looks so much better than an unmade bed.
In the shower, (yes, IN the shower) I keep a scrub brush and go over the walls for 2 or 3 minutes every other day. I hate cleaning the shower, so doing a little every few days keeps the soap scum under control. I also use a daily shower spray.
I keep a stack of ratty washcloths under my bathroom sink. After getting ready in the morning, before I leave my bathroom, I grab one and wipe down the counters, sink and faucet – no cleaning spray necessary, just a little elbow grease, and the soap scum never has a chance to build up.
As I’m walking from one end of the house to the other, I carry jackets, books, toys and drop them off in their respective places as I go.
Lastly – the kids help, too. Even at 3 years old, my son puts his dirty clothes in the hamper, my 7 year old carries the hamper to the laundry room, and they both are expected to put away their own clean laundry. They both are responsible for emptying their own trash cans, carrying their own dishes to the disehwasher, and we’ll do a five minute fire drill where they have to run around the house and find five things that belong in their rooms and put them all away.
In the kitchen, I try to ALWAYS clean up before I go to bed so I start with an empty sink the next day. It’s a trick I learned from Flylady and it helps to not wake up to a mess in the morning! That shiny sink is just as encouraging as a made bed.
All of that said – this keeps things reasonable, not perfect. An hour of effort on the weekend (toilets and floors) and we are ship shape for the rest of the week. It’s a very doable process – I don’t feel like I spend ALL my time at home cleaning despite being a working mom!
Those cheap wire shelves from Target are a life-saver for me. They organize everything from my pasta and snacks to my salad plates and mugs. They instantly double the space in any cupboard!
My kitchen is an open space right next to the living room, as soon as you walk into my house you see the big mess. I have tried different ways of organizing my kitchen and when everything is its place it looks just like the magazine pictures. But in reality that rarely happens around here. I think the number one tip I can give you is teach your family to put everything back as soon as possible. And I need lots of help in that area. Routines help also. Spending 15 minutes at the end of the day to put away things and if you are blessed with a dishwasher, load it and set it. You might wake up to a clean, organized kitchen. I do not have a dishwasher, so I have to do all the work myself. One thing that has helped me the most is to simplify, purge out items that are rarely used and only leave what is used on a regular basis. And organize your utensils near where you need them. Assign a section of the kitchen for certain items, like I have all my bake ware in one cabinet, all my plastic ware in a drawer. In the pantry, I use clear tupperware containers to help see what’s in them and if I’m runnin low on something. In the past I dedicated a whole week each month to organize my kitchen, once you set a place for everything it is easier to keep things undercontrol. Labels are a great help too. Specially for the rest of the family to know where things go and what contents are in each container.
Using labels really does work! Organization does not come natually to me at all. However, I am learning to embrace structure as my friend and helper. I finally dug out the label maker last week and labeled one shelf in my pantry:Drinks, Napkins, Lunch Kits, Cereal and Oatmeal. (I do need to mention that it took me about ten minutes to dig through the drawer with the batteries, test many, (Why do kids throw the used ones back in the drawer with the new?) and try three different label tape cartridges until I could find one that works…) For the first time ever, all of a sudden the lunch kits were on the shelf the next morning in the right spot. Instead of cramming them in between boxes on any random shel, my kids both put them next to the label. It also seemed much easier to unload groceries when I came home from the store. I have plans to label the rest of the pantry, the fride and the cabinets too. Labels help free me from much of the thinking and decision making that tax the parts of my brain that are trying to move onto other functional skills.
Ever wonder how other countries live in such small places… Or how Mary raised her son Jesus in three different homes over his 33 years? Perhaps it is because we as Americans must have it all. We are not happy with what we have, but want more. My idea to organize the kitchen or the whole house is… Get back to the basics. Are we really using ALL those things that clutter our house? Know someone who could use it… Give it to them! Purge ladies, you don’t need stuff to make you happy. You hands make great bread, you don’t need a bread maker. You will find your homes lighter, easier to clean and your hearts lighter because you don’t have STUFF weighing you down.
Hubby walks into the kitchen right after coming through the garage. He notices everything. Especially the stovetop. How can I clean up the burners if there is a spill at dinner? I scrub them, then soak them then… Uggg… Is there a magic cleaning potion that I am missing?
Hi, me again. You might want to change “Speak Your Mind” to “Comments Welcome” ha ha
A couple things and I apologize now for the first one :o)
FIRST, I can’t tell you how hurt and ostracized I feel when so many “real people” make off-the-cuff jabs at us–and I guess the logical implication would be– “fake” people who actually enjoy the idea color coded spices; a la Martha Stewart. You’ve run me into hiding and silenced… whoops, guess I’m not so silent. (Note: I do not color code my spices, but I think alphabetizing them would be keen.) I do label my shelves in the pantry (snacks, soups, baking, etc.), but mainly for the rest of the family who would otherwise continue to put their peanuts with pasta and cracker boxes in with the cereals. Doesn’t every “real” woman want her garbanzos hanging out with kidney and other beans instead of the tomato paste who most definitely belongs in the row marked “tomato sauce”? Don’t call me racist, or worse don’t call me Martha unless you mean it as a compliment. But do call me when you all are ready to be nice.
SECOND, two words: NINJA 1100. Ok, that was ONE word and ONE set of numbers. I do not own one of these so this is NO testimonial. But the delicious images from the hour-long infomercial are swirling in my brain at the speed of puree. The most appealing feature is that it would literally replace FOUR of my appliances that currently occupy three different cupboards. The extra space would give me a place for my huge stock pot that I only use when I make sauce and meatballs for friends. It sits up on a shelf in my bedroom closet disrupting my off-season clothing storage. (Don’t you say it!) So, rather than choosing between a lovely pot that holds a whole lot of love and my friends… I’m seriously contemplating choosing the turbo mixer/processor/juicer/blender/chopper/sidewalk shoveler. Scratch that last one, it ain’t that good.
There you have it. Now back to my mess. :o)
There are still many aspects of my kitchen that I want to re-arrange, but one of the easiest things I have done is to obtain containers to store many of my pantry items. I found myself buying things either in bulk (large or multiple packages) or bulk bins (meaning loose) and various containers helped to save space to store these in. So although I have small counter canisters for flour, sugar, coffee, I do a lot of baking, so I have larger Snapware brand containers in a cabinet that store my baking ingredients. I have other sizes in the pantry for crackers, snack bars, pasta, or baskets that hang off the shelves for packets of things and a tiered-step can organizer to maximize the shelf space. I find that it helps to be able to recycle the box or packaging that something comes in and store it in the containers.
I save a huge amount of time and money by planning my meals and grocery shopping this way:
1. I have a small calendar just for charting meals, which I plan one week at a time, taking into account if we have a night that’s busy (so I’ll use the Crock Pot, for example).
2. My grocery shopping list is set up in the order of the sections of the store. For me, I enter into the produce area, so “Produce” is my first section. This way, I work through my list in order, instead of jumping around and having to backtrack.
3. As I’m planning my menu, I plug the necessary ingredients into my list. Then I peek through the cupboards and fridge and see what else I need. Through the week, if anyone uses the last of something, it’s added to the list for the next shopping trip.
This is how my mom always set up her shopping list, and I always laughed at it, until I had my own shopping to do! By planning ahead, I only go to the store once a week, and we have all we need.
(The other time- and money-saving tip I’ve stumbled upon is: “avoid grocery shopping with kids.”)
My Question:
How can I organize my kitchen cabinets so it’s EASY to maintain? With the exception of breakable things like the dishes, it seems like things just keep getting thrown in there! I’m sure having 3 kids doesn’t help, but I know sometimes I just toss things in, too (just being honest!).
My biggest organizing challenge is making use of limited storage space, all over the house. Our closets are tiny, my kitchen doesn’t have enough cabinets, and we no longer have a garage or outdoor storage shed. Some of the ways I compensate aren’t the most attractive, but if cereal is on sale for a killer price, it’s wiser for me to spend my money buying extra boxes that I store on top of my kitchen cabinets, then it is to pay full price once a week.
I guess you could say my two best organizing tips are:
*Decide how much clutter you can live with, and then try not to let it get worse. Because with a preschooler, toddler, and ADD husband, if won’t go away completely, no matter how hard I work!
*Keep “flat surfaces” to a minimum. This is important to me because I make piles, every where. And the more flat surfaces I have to pile things on, the more piles I have. And lots of piles exceed my maximum clutter quotient.
Some of my biggest organizing struggles are the girl’s toys (which are mostly kept downstairs), a messy husband who just doesn’t see the messes he makes, and those pesky plastic containers and their matching lids!
In one house, I had my hubby put hooks by the back door (in the laundry room) at the girls’ level, to hang their school backpacks and their dance bags. Just having a place for the bags is great! We live in a rental home now, and I don’t feel free to do that here. I miss it.
Here’s my issue. I have two boys ages 3&5 and I’m pregnant with boy #3. Needless to say, I am low on energy. The energy I do have is poured into my boys…instead of housework. If I do housework, I feel guilty that I’m ignoring the boys or being neglectful by letting them veg in front of the TV while I work. But if I neglect the house, I feel guilty that I’m raising them to be irresponsible by example (and that someone will call the Health Department and turn me in). Oh and did I mention I homeschool? I feel so stretched and like I just can’t win either way. Can I really have a clean/organized house and educated well rounded kids at the same time?
We once had a kitchen so tiny we could sit at the table, swivel around in our chair, open the refrigerator door and pull out the mustard in one smooth move. Needless to say, I tried to think of every possible space-saving- and- making device I could. One thing that worked well was using a three-tiered hanging wire basket above the sink to store dishcloths and towels, (at least the ones in good enough shape to be seen in public) as we had a total of three tiny drawers. Wa-la!
This is one organizing secret that is in our kitchen although it doesn’t involve cooking: One of the best things we ever invested in is a charging station for our cell phones and iPods. It harnesses the cords and hides them hidden away, it has a shelf on top for the phones & ipods as they are charging, and it has open areas in front to keep pens, pencils, and memo pads organized. I’m really in love with it!
Well, the issue in our kitchen is limited cabinet space. So, here’s two things we did:
1) We found a spot on our laundry wall and hung up about 7 small hooks. Now, my Paula Deen pots have a home. They are still close to the kitchen- easy access, but are also out of the way and not taking up coveted cabinet space.
2) We also have a sunroom that had one entire wall of open bookshelves – so we put doors on them. We use one section as a pantry now and that has created a lot of room in our kitchen. Everything is hidden though so the room still looks nice and clean.
Hi Kathi~
I can’t help you! I need help myself!!! haha…REALLY, I do!
Hurry and write this book:)
Hugs!