An organized kitchen: Part 2

So here I am presenting rest of the story! Incase, you haven't looked at the starting of this story, here you go......

Upper Cabinets: Every Indian kitchen has different variety of lentils, spices, flour etc etc. Mine is not different. To tackle this problem, I ordered different types of glass canisters from Lock N Lock.

To store the lentils that I use on a day to day basis, I ordered 10 cup glass canisters. To store flour, peanuts or other that I use twice or thrice a week, I ordered 7.6 cup glass canisters. And to store the items that I use once in every two weeks, I ordered the 5 cup ones. Whats so nice about these containers? Well, they are glass and hence no worries unlike the plastic ones. These are clear glass which makes it easier to see what's inside. And the lid is airtight, I mean AIRTIGHT. So, not so frequently used canisters stay in the top rack. Less frequently used ones are kept in the rack below those and the most frequently used ones stay in the bottom rack of the cabinet. This way, I don't have to strain my arm while taking these out regularly.

Then, for the spices I used a lazy susan which holds atleast 8 - 9 spice bottles. I have also used cabinet shelves like these to utilize the available space.

And then, coming to the food storage containers, I have kept the mostly used containers in the bottom shelves of the upper cabinets and the less frequently used ones on the top rows. Notice that I haven't stacked the containers (that I mostly use) one inside the other because I don't want to keep looking for the lids when I want to take a container out.

As you can see, there is a mini LockNLockPlace here in these cabinets in the form of containers (wink)! What can I do? I am more so addicted to LNL products.

I also ordered this to store the lids above each set of containers. There are a variety of under the shelf organizers out there with which you can utilize the space available.

My kitchen organization is still in progress, but I am pretty much satisfied with what has been done so far. I think with little planning (and shopping!), you can easily organize not just the kitchen, but any space.

An organized kitchen: Part 1

Okay so, I decided to organize my kitchen.While I am typing this and looking at the pictures, I realized that instead of organizing my kitchen, I lock n lock'ized my kitchen. I waited for my fall semester to end so that I can devote my 100% to organizing. And I wanted this to end before my spring semester starts. But, thanks to Lock N Lock, the stuff that I ordered didn't arrive until after Christmas when we were not around. So I didn't get a chance to really organize my kitchen until last week.

DH had a long weekend and that was the perfect time, I realized. And the result:

The pantry:

Problem 1: I buy groceries from store and stack them one above the other in the pantry. Because of this, I don't know about the stuff I have at the bottom. Sometimes, I open a packet (for example, self rising corn meal) and I don't get to use for weeks. The next time I wanted to use it, it is full of food bugs.
Solution: To deal with this, I bought some containers from Lock N Lock. These are clear and air tight containers and are stackable. So I can see what's inside and even after opening a packet, it's fresh every time I want to use it because the containers are air tight.

Problem 2: We have a deep, narrow pantry which makes it difficult for me to keep track of what's been in the back. So I have bought wall pockets and decided to use these 1 for each row in the pantry. What I want to do with these wall pockets is that I would write a list of inventory in each row just so that I don't have to keep checking the stuff I have in the back.

Tip: If you have deep pantry like mine, you can also get one of those pull out drawers which you can pull out to reach the stuff in the back. But these are little but pricey, and hence I thought of the wall pockets; just dedicate one pocket for each row in the pantry and that should help you.

Under the sink:

Problem: I have one word to say - CLUTTER. I have in there - the sink cleaners, Mr.Magic Erasers, dish liquid, dishwasher detergent, swiffer dusters and what not?

Solution: Under sink organizer - I bought this from Bed Bath & Beyond and this is one cute organizer. I was able to store in all the cleaners and the stuff that we had under the sink. I have also bought a kitchen cabinet organizer similar to this to hold all the brushes & scrubbers, and a Plastic bag dispenser to hold all the plastic bags. And it looks so much better in there now.

Tip: Use "Under the sink" storage for short term storage only. You can store one pair of gloves in there and rest of the gloves in a box in long term storage (either in a garage or somewhere else). Store one extra bottle of dishwasher detergent in there and the remaining bottles (I usually get a 6 pack from amazon.com) in long term storage. This makes life a lot easier.

Stay tuned for more pictures in my next post......