What the week holds, and the rest of January kitchen declutter

I finished up the January declutter challenge, (except for one more project involving wine storage) which was all about the kitchen.

Week 3 was all about cabinets - under the cooktop is where I have pans and lids.  I pulled everything out, wiped the shelf liner with windex, and organized it all as I put it back.  Mostly, my method was "like items together".

Bakeware was next - easy.  It lives under the oven and was pretty well organized.  Just needed some wiping down.

For the canned food part of the challenge, I cleaned out the entire pantry. Along the way I built a couple of wine racks from IKEA.  Our pantry doesn't get too out of control or cluttered.  Mostly because I only buy groceries once a week and I buy what we will be eating fairly soon. However, I did toss some stuff that I figured was too old - instant rice and old cereal.

Next on the list was organize spices.  I know that technically you aren't supposed to store spices close to the stove, but that's where I use them, so I leave them in this small cabinet.  On the bottom shelf is a lazy Susan, the middle shelf is large spice containers and oils, and the top shelf holds a basket of over-the-counter meds.

Over the range hood is another small cabinet with mostly Christmas mugs, and other items Hubby holds dear, including coffee mugs from various scout camps.

The cupboard shelves were also easy - I have to purge them a couple times of year.  There's only two wine drinkers here so what is up with all those wine glasses?  

Coffee cups live in this cabinet near the coffee pots.  The ones on the top shelf don't get used often, but I face them out so I can enjoy the photos on them.  The middle shelf is Hubby's coffee and tea, the bottom shelf has hot chocolate and mugs.

The cabinet over the microwave was a royal pain.  Basically it's where I store things I will rarely if ever use - china, crystal, silver. I stacked some stuff in there so I could make room for that crystal pitcher.

Some of this was wedding gifts, some inherited. 

The freezer and fridge were a chore - I didn't realize how messy they were with spilled food and things we just plain needed to toss.  I organized the freezer shelves top to bottom. 

My least favorite thing to do is clean the fridge.  I cleaned all of the shelves, and consolidated leftovers. I even pulled a turkey out of the freezer to thaw so I could remember to roast it. And all of the cubbies in the door got wiped out and organized.  Nothing but a weather radio gets stored on top of the fridge so all I had to do up there was Windex it.

Once of the challenge items was to go through your recipes and cookbooks, which I did.  I even ended up taking some cookbooks, along with some novels I was done with, to Half Price Books and earned a tidy $21!  I tossed recipe cards for things I vowed never to make again - mostly involving casseroles. And my stack of cookbooks got tidied up.

The tops of the cabinets I cleaned just after I put Christmas up, so I consider them done. 

It's pretty simple up there!

And that was the end of the January kitchen challenge for me.  Along the way everything got thoroughly cleaned and I feel like I have more empty space in here and I like that a lot.  This week is another slow week. What does your week look like?

Gina