#DeclutterLikeAMother Week Two

Good morning friends!

I hope you all had a great weekend! LJ stayed with my parents from Friday-Sunday (it was the first time I’ve spent more than one night away from him!) so that Justin and I could attend several of his work functions. It was so great to have a chance to sleep in, recharge, and enjoy staying out late with friends but we were pretty darn excited to be reunited Sunday. 🙂

Declutter Like a Mother – Week Two

I explained in a previous post that I’m participating in the #DeclutterLikeAMother challenge (read more about it here) in January. You can read about my week one experience with decluttering bathrooms and closets here. Last week was all about: the kitchen!

So I have to first admit that I strayed from 30 minutes a day goal. In fact, I really only spent maybe a total of an hour over the whole week going through cabinets in my kitchen. I decided not to stress about doing things perfectly, because the spirit of the challenge is progress over perfection, so I just focused on doing what I could. That being said, I feel like the work I did still made a huge impact!

Over the years, I have done a pretty good job of weeding out small kitchen items. I don’t keep a million spatulas, I get rid of items that don’t work well, and if I bring something new into the kitchen, it has to be something I know I’ll use frequently or for multiple things. For this reason, what I have is mostly what I use. I only got rid of a few items from my drawers (a cookie frosting decorator I got as a hand-me-down years ago and always “thought I’d use someday”, an old round cake pan that has seen better days, etc). The big change happened in two main cabinets.

Cabinet one was my appliance cabinet. I don’t like clogging up my counter top with lots of appliances, so I use a large cabinet as storage to store everything (crockpot, toaster, blender, stand mixer, etc) except our coffeemaker. This cabinet had two really huge items that take up a ton of space and don’t get used: my juicer and my Instant Pot. Now, I’m not getting rid of my Instant Pot, I just need to actually spend some time figuring it out (people who love theirs, tell me your tips! I have made one soup and it had so much prep work that I’m not sure it was actually faster for me than just dumping things in a crockpot? Help!) This challenge was a great reminder for me to get it out of the cabinet and spend time learning it. Use it or lose it, right?

While the Instant Pot remains, it’s time for the juicer to go. I love a yummy juice, but I just don’t take the time to buy all the ingredients, prepare it all to go in the juicer, clean all the parts afterwards, etc. It’s too much work for me and I haven’t used it in over a year. It is going to find its way onto Facebook marketplace this week so someone who will actually enjoy it can put it to use.

The other HUGE change happened in a large pantry cabinet off the kitchen. You guys. This space was so. bad. It had become a catch-all cabinet for mostly serving items but also things that just didn’t have a place anywhere else. And it was a disaster area. I literally had to try to keep things from falling down on me.

Why oh why did I have the things I most frequently use on the bottom of the top shelf? This basically guaranteed an avalanche every time. See the nice eye-level shelf full of things I rarely or never use (a growler and an old coffeemaker!?) – why didn’t that house the things I most often reach for? I’m honestly baffled.

Check out this before and after.

I’m ridiculously excited about this change. I can easily access the things I most often need, and even the things I use less frequently are now very easy to get without causing a landslide.

The biggest thing that was reinforced to me from decluttering the kitchen was to let go of my “someday” items. It is so tempting to fall into the trap of keeping something that is in decent condition and could be used “someday.” Take all those big plastic food storage containers. I don’t use them now because they don’t fit in my cabinet. They’ve been in storage almost three years because maybe “someday” I’ll … what? Move and have a bigger pantry? Will I even want to use them at that point? Or would I prefer to get a matching set? Or by that time will I just prefer to leave things in the original container? Why would I hold on to something I haven’t used in several years and have no clear idea of when I would want to use it again? Same with my Brita water pitcher. This was great at a previous house, but then we moved and now have a fridge with a filter. I don’t take up space inside the fridge with a pitcher that provides water we can easily get from the outside. Again, haven’t used it for several years and have no goal to use it again. WHY AM I KEEPING IT!? If any of these items cost hundreds of dollars, maybe I could make the case for keeping them. But these are things that if “someday” comes and I really do wish I had them, I can get them again pretty easily. And you know what else? When I asked my sisters if they wanted anything, my younger sister jumped on the coffee maker and food storage containers. These are things she wants now. They can fulfill a purpose for her now. Why on earth did I want to keep these things in storage for “someday” when someone else can put them to use now? 

I may not have spent a ton of time decluttering the kitchen last week, but I’m super pleased with what I was able to accomplish. It feels so much lighter to just have what I need and know the things I’m not using will now be able to be used by someone else.

Is there one spot of your house that baffles you like my pantry baffled me?