Taking Back My Home Weeks Four & Five

Due to an incredibly busy week, I am combining two challenges into one this week....in case you noticed that I missed posting my progress last week! I have been sticking with the challenges though, and seeing lots of progress in my kitchen! In fact, it is nearing the completion of being completely decluttered and reorganized.

This week's big project is chronicled in pictures:

When I tackled clearing the clutter under my kitchen sink, I discovered that one of my pipes was leaking! Such a good thing that this project was on my declutter calendar! After removing all the 'stuff' under there, I found that the leak had pooled water underneath and that I had some mold to eradicate from the bottom of the cabinet. There had been a piece of vinyl flooring covering the bottom of the cabinet, but it needed to go.

I removed the vinyl, treated the entire cabinet with vinegar to get rid of the mold, and then located some leftover self-sticking vinyl tiles that were stored in my basement. Thankfully I had not decluttered them yet! My hubby cut some new plywood to fit on the bottom of the cabinet so we were working from a fresh new base. I cut the vinyl tiles to fit, then installed them. It gave the cabinet a whole fresh new appearance!

I then set about combining half bottles of cleaner, getting rid of anything that was unnecessary, and figuring out some new storage spots for things that really didn't belong under the sink in the first place.

When that was complete, I was able to fit what was left into two storage baskets, which slid nicely into my newly redecorated space under the sink!

Everyone in my family is loving the new look.

Other projects accomplished this week:

• Complete de-clutter of the utensil drawer, silverware drawer, and gadget drawer. I found a bunch of stuff that, though it's a great idea, it's just not something I use. Those items went into the donation box. Other things were old and worn out, rendering them useless. There are a few things that I need to hold onto, because they are needed a few times a year. Those went into a nice see-through storage box and into the basement with other seldom used kitchen items. Overall...a huge success.
• I also kept up with the refrigerator/freezer de-clutter and cleaning. Thankfully, I had done this not too long ago and try to keep up with it, so there wasn't a whole lot to throw out. I searched and found two packages of food in the freezer that were outdated and not wrapped well enough to try using anyways, so I ditched them. Thanks to my freezer cooking system, foods rotate through my freezer on a pretty regular basis, and I have different items assigned to different shelves, so there is not a whole lot of lost things in there.
• The fridge got a nice deep cleaning. I found one stray hot pepper that had somehow slid out of the veggie drawer and made it's way to the back of the fridge. Yuck. Other than that it was pretty routine stuff, and I was very happy with the results. My fridge has glass shelves so when they are sparkly, it looks great! 
• I picked through several cabinets and picked out some items that are not needed. Off they went to the donation box. I found several others that could be kept in a better location. I am loving all the new found space in my little kitchen.
• We made another trip to the donation center, and gifted them with some great re-usable items.
• My kids laughed and enjoyed looking at all their 'baby spoons' that I found in the back of the silverware drawer. We all decided that they could leave the house now, as they are no longer needed and have served us well.

Michelle's Challenge this week is to organize recipes. I have several binders that I keep printed recipes in, and a family recipe book that I write all our special recipes in that we have created. Other than that, I have taken to storing most of my recipes online, either on my Pinterest Board, or in a folder I have created on my desktop. I really like digitally organizing my recipes, and then pulling them up on the iPad when I am cooking. Since I have already organized about 90% of my recipes in this way, I am going to take this week to finish my kitchen cabinets and sort through my old cookbooks, deciding which ones I really want to keep, and either selling the rest on ebay or half.com or donating them.

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