Room by Room: Kitchen Makeover

Before

My friend Rachel is one of the two lucky winners of the organization giveaway that I did in August. She and I had a blast reorganizing her kitchen one Saturday morning while the daddies took our boys to the park.

Challenges:

• An older kitchen with limited counter space. 
• A cabinet needed to be emptied and eliminated so that she could install a permanent dishwasher. Her hubby then built a tall narrow cabinet aside the dishwasher to store items like cookie sheets.
• Finding a good place for small appliances like the breadmaker and mixer that she uses regularly.

Solutions:

• A new microwave cart that also holds pots and pans, linens, and spices. This is placed where a portable dishwasher used to be.
• Removing everything from drawers and cabinets and evaluating them. When putting them away, we consolidated them and regrouped the items by use. More frequently used items are closer to the sink/stove areas.
• Donating unused hand-me-down dishes and promotional drinkware to the thrift store.
• Moving a few boxes of infrequently used items to the basement, and dating the box. If she doesn't need anything from those boxes in a year, she can safely say they aren't needed.

All in all, we felt it was a very successful morning's work. After having to relearn where everything is, Rachel says she is now really pleased with a chance to get an "outsider's perspective" on the space and loves that we found ways to free up counter space.

After

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