Organizing the Upper Cabinets

Today I have been busy organizing and painting my lower cabinets in the kitchen.  I finished the upper cabinets a few weeks ago and so I decided to show you how they turned out.

The first thing that I did was completely empty all of the upper cabinets.  They were in desperate need of painting so, once they were empty, I cleaned them thoroughly and proceeded to paint them.  Then it was time to put things back.  I really thought about how each space is used in my kitchen before I started to purge the contents of my cupboards.

I'll show you the before and after starting with the cupboard on the left and working my way right.

The first cupboard is where I keep the plates, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, etc.  I know that keeping plates next to the dishwasher is more convenient but, because my kitchen cupboards are so old (1930's), the ones on the right side of the kitchen not deep enough to hold the plates.  This is the only place that they will fit.

Before

After

Since this cupboard is closest to the stove, where my kettle is, I decided to keep the instant coffee, tea and hot chocolate here.  I moved the salt and pepper and olive oil to the spice cupboard that I already showed you in this post and I brought the teapots in from another cupboard to be kept with the tea bags.

The next cupboard is where I keep my bowls, insulated bottles, water pitchers and dessert dishes.  It's always been rather disorganized because the insulated bottles take up so much room.  I found another place for them and now things look much better.

Before

After

I can now see everything that is in this cupboard.  I kept a few travel mugs in here and the very large Coca Cola cups which are for making smoothies with the hand blender.

Next comes the place where I keep my mugs, measuring cups and glasses.

Before

After

By grouping all of the glasses together and getting rid of or moving some others, the space now looks much more organized.

The next cupboard holds all the canned goods that are not in the pantry and other food.



Before

After

Some of the canned goods were moved to the pantry and now I can see that I have way too much tuna and salmon!  I'm going to have to think of something to make to use it up.  I also found some crackers that were stale but instead of throwing them out, I ran them through the food processor and made them into crumbs that I then use when making hamburgers and meatloaf.  I also do this with tortilla chips.

I keep more food and medication in this next cupboard.



Before



After

Directly below this cupboard is my coffee maker.  This is the only side of the kitchen that has outlets to plug things into so it has to stay over here.  I moved all my coffee supplies to this cupboard so that they would be close to the coffee maker.  I also moved a lot of the medications into the medicine cabinet in the downstairs bathroom.  Since there is no shower in that room, I don't have to worry about the humidity damaging them.  Mr. P is diabetic and so the striped basket holds his testing kit and extra strips.  I found a metal condiment holder at Home Sense that was divided into 3 .  I have prescription meds in one, pain relievers in another and allergy meds in the third.  On the top shelf is a plastic bin to corral all of my rice packages.

Last is the small cupboard above the microwave.  There is an outlet on the bottom shelf and the cord for the microwave that tends to get in the way.  I tried making a charging station there but it looked untidy and I would forget my phone if I couldn't see it.



Before

After

I found these awesome plastic containers at the dollar store and I put all of my baking stuff in them - cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa, etc.  I added a tie strap onto the microwave cord to keep it in place better.  I like that I can see how much of certain baking items I have left and I also like that they stack so that they use more of the vertical space in the cupboard.

I added a little something else to the door.

I love this magnetic knife holder and I wanted it on the spice cupboard door so that it was right next to the cutting board and stove but the spice cupboard is too narrow.  The only spot that it would have fit on that side of the kitchen was on a lower door and I was worried that it would be unsafe, especially if a young child came to visit.

I added this for a finishing touch.

Just a little something extra to make me smile when I open the door because, if I haven't had my coffee, I need something extra to make me smile!





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