I organized my kitchen yesterday. My favorite part about organizing a space is getting rid of stuff. I found some equipment I never use that I hope to sell and mismatched tupperware to donate. My cupboards were already in pretty good shape, but I had three drawers that needed some love. Here’s what I did to make them better:

The Cooking Utensils Drawer

My cooking utensil drawer gets crazy. I think mosts people’s does. So, I decided to pull out all my wooden spoons and put them in a wide mouth quart mason jar on my counter.

I have some beautiful olive wood spoons and some really awesome wood-burned spoons that my friend gave to me as a gift. So they look beautiful on my countertop. I mean look, aren’t these fun?

For some, your counter may be more cluttered than your drawers. So storing wooden spoons on your counter isn’t appealing. But it helped my cooking utensil drawer become much less cluttered and I like how the spoons look on my counter.  Someday maybe I’ll have a pullout drawer where all my cooking utensils can be stored upright, but for now, this is an improvement.

The Plastic Bag Drawer

I must confess one of my guilty pleasures: opting for plastic bags at the grocery checkout. I don’t take a reusable bag with me, I don’t ask for paper-I get plastic. They’re just so easy to carry, and great garbage can liners, and hold poopy diapers so well, and I think I’m digging myself deeper…

Ahem. So if you also happen to indulge in this guilty pleasure, here’s a tip for storage I learned from my mom: tie the bags into a knot and they won’t get all puffy and jumbled and they’ll take up less space. Okay, I admitted my plastic bag consumer behavior. I’m blushing. Let’s move on…

The Tupperware Drawer

I like my tupperware drawer to be nice and tidy. My frustration level increases rapidly when I can’t find the right lid for the right tupperware. My solution is to first, throw away (or donate) any tupperware that doesn’t have a matching lid. And then to second, throw away any lid that doesn’t have matching tupperware. Hey you mismatched tupperware hoarders-stop kidding yourself! You’re not going to use it if it doesn’t have a lid. Just let it go.

This is my tupperware drawer. Nice and tidy. It may not look like a lot of containers, but the glass ones are stacked double high and there are quite a few plastic containers stacked inside each other. I keep the lids on any containers that aren’t stackable (like the glass containers), so you don’t have to search for the match.

I have two kinds of tupperware that I use. I received both kinds as wedding gifts. It’s probably the wedding gift I use most! It’s not actually Tupperware, but what else are you supposed to call it? Okay, “food storage containers.” It just doesn’t roll off the tongue as smoothly. My favorite tupperware is the Glasslock Snaplock Lid containers (affiliate link). Glass is usually a good thing. I also like my Rubbermaid plastic containers (affiliate link). I like to store food that I’m not going to reheat in these. I guess my point is this: if you don’t have some nice, functional tupperware, buy some and your life and tupperware drawer will be much more pleasant.

I’m feeling good about my kitchen drawers now.

And lastly…just a photo of a pretty nook in my kitchen. My favorite cupboard. This is the only cupboard that I would feel comfortable displaying behind a glass door or with open shelving. Isn’t it pretty? And it actually stays looking this way-organized with color coded bowls and everything. That’s the OCD in me.

Do you have any kitchen organizing tips to share? Happy organizing!