Kitchen Post #1 - Cabinet Organization!

Hello all! I'm declaring the month of August "Kitchen Month" on my blog. This month I'm going to share all kinds of posts about our Kitchen Remodel...how we got from this {I'm warning you, you may want to cover your eyes for this part....}:

To this! {which involved all kinds of DIY projects including building our own custom cherry cabinets and granite tile countertops, etc., etc.}

For the first post of this series, I'm going to do a quick little post on kitchen cabinet organizing ideas. Since I now have way more cabinet space than ever before in my life I've been working hard to find ways to neatly organize things so that everything has a place and can remain tucked away in its place rather than getting strewn all over the countertops. After all, I want to see as much of that gorgeous granite as possible!

Here are a few of my organizing solutions to date. I say "to date" because organization is an ever-evolving process for me. Our spaces are constantly being re-organized and re-vamped.

Here's our Tupperware/Sippy cup organization solution.

We have a large drawer with:

One basket for sippy cups & lids & other misc. parts

One basket for baby plates & bowls

One area for round and square tupperwares

One basket for square lids

One basket for round lids

*Sorry you can see my foot in this pic! :)*

It seems that I reorganize this drawer on a daily basis because my 1 year old Levi loves to play in it. But that's ok. I decided to keep all this stuff in this drawer because then he would have something to play with that was safe for him and it keeps him pretty much out of my way while I work in the kitchen. He loves to help me! :)

{Btw, I also commented on Jen's Post today over at IHeart Organizing, one of my favorite blogs...I wanted to share with her my tupperware storage ideas since that's what she's talking about today. You should really check out her site. TONS of great ideas over there!!}

Anyways, moving on...I also absolutely LOVE our new spice cabinet.

I went out to Target and got a tiered expandable organizer for about $15. I feel that was well worth it because now I'm overjoyed each time I open this cabinet.

I put tall things like salt and a large bottle of vanilla on the back tier. And then I organized the smaller spice bottles aphabetically. So fun for a nerd like me!

The top shelf of the cabinet contains larger things like baking soda, baking powder, sugar (in a canister so that ants, if we ever have them, won't be able to get into it), kosher salt, vinegar, etc.

Our silverware drawer is also one area of the kitchen that brings me great joy. We had a bunch of mismatched silverware when we got married but one year for Christmas Mom got us a nice set of 16 Martha Stewart place settings from Target. They are very heavy duty simple timeless utensils. I love them. Then we got that stainless steel mesh organizer from Bed Bath & Beyond, I believe.

Around the outside of it, I have spatulas and baby spoons, measuring cups and spoons, can opener, etc. I just used a couple small containers that I found around the house to divide and sort that stuff. I just love opening this drawer now!

On our kitchen table we like to keep vitamins, napkins, baby wipes, trivets, and salt & pepper handy. However, I do not like having all that visual clutter sitting out. Especially when trying to "stage" our home to sell. So, I found this great container with a lid on clearance at Home Goods for $9. I scurried up to the cash register with it (before anyone else took it or I found anything else to buy there!) and brought it straight home. It looks great with our new tablecloth (also from HomeGoods) and perfectly contains all our clutter.

And a nice little serendipity to this thing is that the napkins can be pulled out the handle holes on the side of the container without even taking the lid off!

Well, that's it for today. A tour of all our little organized sectors of the kitchen.  Please come back soon to see more details of our Kitchen Remodel!