One of the most exciting this about January is having the extra energy and ambition that comes from our respite from our regular days over the holiday season. This year my Christmas was very quiet, so I got a lot of R&R. Armed with all sorts of New Year Resolutions, I feel motivated to make some changes in my life.

Beyond cleaning out clutter and organizing drawers, I have decided to really reevaluate how I am using my space and decided to start with some areas that have been driving me crazy for a while.
I have been in my home for 15 years now, and in that time have pretty much been assigned a place for everything I own, however as new items are brought in some of the old storage solutions are no longer working for me. Because I am also working on my eating habits I decided to start in my kitchen.
The first drawer I tackled is for pots and pans. It is a deep 24” drawer and it houses all my saucepan lids, a knife sharpener, and other miscellaneous items that didn’t fit in other drawers. I have stacked the pots, added a rack to hold the lids and a container to house spall chopping boards, and a grater needed most nights for food prep. Everything else was removed.

The drawer I tackled was the same size and held all of my frying pans, a screen, and larger lids. The pans are very heavy, and it has always been a challenge to get them all in. In addition, I have 2 large Dutch ovens that were currently being stored on my range top, which is 6 burners, so they are still able to function, but when I cook have found grease goes on the pans and requires a lot of extra washing up. I started online shopping and found these fantastic pots and pan holders that can sit on a countertop if necessary, but as I am further wanting to reduce clutter on my counters have positioned them on a shelf in my pantry.

In order to free up the room in my pantry, I had to remove some of my food items and selected all of the boxed meal items, such as rice, pasta, quinoa, and Mexican kits. I am trying to buy less processed foods and having them easily visible instead of hidden back in my pantry means I can take better stock of what I actually have on hand and ensure that I use what I have before I buy more. These items are now stored in my old pot drawer. The addition of a few deep plastic containers helps me to keep the items both neat and separated into categories.
Before: After:
I have a small bank of drawers (one shallow and two deep that I have designated a baking station. These drawers were becoming catch-alls and had certain items we had outgrown as my children are older now. I also noticed that some of my baking pans were being stored with my others and taking up space that helped to clutter that drawer, so when I redid the pot drawer, I removed my loaf pans and cake pans to go with my other baking items. I added three adjustable drawer organizers to help keep things sorted and organized.

Drawer number 2 after Drawer number 1 before

Finally, I moved on to my last deep pot drawer where I store my soup and spaghetti pots. Because these pots are so large there seems to be less shifting when items are removed and replaced, but I added two adjustable drawer organizers here to separate and create a space for miscellaneous utensils like my oversized corkscrews, zester, cheese cutter, which are two large for my narrow utensil drawer.

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