Welcome to the beginning of my month long series “How to Organize Your Kitchen Frugally in 31 Days”. Every day during the month of October I will be sharing an organized space in my kitchen with you. My goal is to inspire you and give you ideas on how you can organize your kitchen.
If you missed it, you may want to read why I’m embracing my outdated kitchen. It might give you a little perspective on why the pictures of my kitchen organization won’t be “magazine worthy”, but helpful for real life organization.
First, so you can understand where things are in my kitchen as we go through the month, I’ll share some photos with you. I thought you might be interested to see what it looked like before we moved in. We live on a budget, so our “renovations” weren’t remarkable, but it’s much more livable for a family with four children not to have carpeting in the kitchen!
Here is one of the realtor photos. And just in case you’re wondering, yes, the carpeting was glued to the base of the cabinets. The only new appliance in the kitchen was the oven. All of the other appliances promptly died within six months of us moving in, so most of our “renovation” went into new appliances.
This is a panoramic view including the eating area.
So what did we do to update on a budget?
We started with painting and ripping out the carpet. We put “peel and stick” linoleum tiles on the floor. I would not recommend this unless your budget is extremely tight and/or you have four little ones with carpeting in your kitchen LOL. It hasn’t held up well at all (the pictures do it a lot of justice, believe me). That cost us about $200 which wasn’t too bad for the size of the kitchen. Overall, since our budget was so tight, I would still rather have this flooring than carpet in the kitchen.
And here is what our kitchen looks like now. It’s a great size and much bigger than the kitchen we had in our tiny apartment, so I’m grateful. Someday we hope to update the cabinets, but for now, I’m happy to have the space.
Here is a view that includes the eating area.
Here is a view from the dining room side of the room. Meet our dog, Bentley, who decided to photo bomb this picture. 🙂
And here is a view of the eating area. My pantry is right behind the back door. That is one of my most favorite and appreciated parts of my kitchen.
When we moved in, we didn’t own a kitchen table, so we had to buy that, too. We got a great deal on it, but got an extra great deal on the bench. I found it at a yard sale for only $20. It has a hinged lid, so I keep my seasonal linens and tablecloths in it. It’s also great seating for little ones.
Well, now that you know what my kitchen looks like, are you ready for some organization? I can’t wait to share all the spaces with you this month! But first, there are a few things I want you to know.
1. When you are trying to organize any space, one of the best ways to start is to remove everything from that space and evaluate if it is the best location for those items. Clean it out and consider the space you have (not the space you wish you had).
2. If you find that you aren’t using some of the items or there are just too many things: donate, recycle, or pitch them.
3. If you do use the items regularly, decide whether this location is the best place to store them. If it is, look at your space carefully. Pay attention to what you use most often and what you use less often. The things you most commonly use are the things you want to have easy access to.
4. Things should be stored near the place where they are used. Make every effort to do this as it will make things much easier on you. You will hear me say this over and over throughout the month. When you evaluate what you have and what you need, and get rid of what you don’t, it will be much easier to organize! Having an organized space that functions well will be the result if you follow these steps.
So lets get this party started! If you would like to take pictures of your spaces throughout the month, I would love to share some of those before and afters once we wrap up this series. Don’t want to take a before picture? Don’t worry! I’d still love to see your after pictures of your newly organized spaces.
Tomorrow I’ll be sharing how I organize the cupboards under my sink.
I have a tiny, gallery style kitchen (also with carpet still – yuck!), I love the reminder to love what we have. And frugally organizing is perfect for me! Looking forward to this!
So looking forward to this! It is going to be a great month!
Thank you so much for this series. I HATE my kitchen, but also realize that I’m very grateful for the upgrade in space from my apartment. I have felt so overwhelmed by its shortcomings that I have ignored it’s strengths and have made no effort to maximize what I have received. This series is challenging me to change my perspective and embrace my kitchen space as a gift. My brown appliances may be older than me, but they work well to nourish my children. The cabinets may be outdated and ugly, but they are holding all my things, that in my apartment were in boxes stored in my bedroom closet. I’m truly blessed with all that I have and maybe my lack of appreciation is also why I haven’t been blessed to upgrade this space yet. Anyway, my comment is long enough. Thanks again! I’m following!
Thank you for sharing your kitchen with us. While reading blogs or pintrest it can be hard to remember that everyone does not have unlimited income or the perfect space. It is refreshing and inspiring to see an organized, pretty kitchen from the ‘real world’. I’m looking forward to the rest of the month.
Looks very inviting! We are on a tight budget too, after five years we are just starting to paint our cabinets. Yesterday was the first coat, hopefully it will work on the cheapy wood. Without cupboard doors though, I realized there is work to be done on what goes behind them 🙂
What are the dimensions of your kitchen (not including dining area)? I just remodeled an 11’x11′ kitchen and learned it was “small” compared to today’s design magazine standards!
Good question, Sherry. The dimensions without the eating area are about 10′ x 13′. I’m sure either of our kitchens would feel gigantic to most of the world. 🙂
I just wanted to say thank you for doing this this month. We are waiting to hear from the bank if we got our first house. I will be moving to a bigger kitchen but I will not have a pantry. Still have to put food in cupboards till I find something to make a pantry and figure out where to put it if I can. I will be paying very close attention to all these this month. I am looking forward to organizing the whole house but the kitchen the most. As I use mine now I think of the new kitchen and how some of it is set up same as have now but more counter and cupboards. I think what I can put in boxes for garage sale and what I still need.
This is going to be a fun series. Thank you so much for sharing your kitchen. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I think it’s perfect. 🙂 Can’t wait to see more.
-Tracy
This will be a great month.
I love your kitchen. It is homey and beautiful. We have 9 people in about 900 sq. ft. and our kitchen is maybe half the size of yours. But, I too, am thankful. Our last house, the kitchen didn’t work….that’s right. None of the appliances worked, and the sink wouldn’t drain. We used a crockpot to cook with, and I used mostly toss away dishes. The dishes that we did use, I washed in the bathroom sink. Our kitchen now, all the applinces work and we have much more storage room. I look forward to seeing how you organize things, so maybe I will get some ideas too.
Thank you for your post. We built our home 6 years ago and I went from a teeny kitchen that was falling apart to one that is spacious and very functional. There are days I find myself wanting to redo this and redo that to make my kitchen look more like a magazine. I am reminding myself to love and be thankful for what I have, and when I get my kitchen organized I’ll love it even more!
You should hear my story about my wood floors…. : )
I feel like I am looking at my kitchen! We don’t have the door way and the windows are combined w/ a longer counter on that side. The cabinets are completely the same though & we have the peel / stick flooring.
I am sad to say that we don’t have pantry though 🙁 It has to be the one thing I truly dislike about the house. Can’t wait for more!
I’ve never had as much trouble getting my kitchen organized as I have these last few years. While the reasons are many, I am determined to make THIS the month that it gets done. Thanks for the series. I look forward to accomplishing this!
We just bought our first home and moved in last week. I can’t wait to see what all you have in store for us. I’m still trying to figure out where to put everything and how to set up the kitchen to where it works best for us, so I’ll be following every day. I LOVE the bench idea. We already have a bench for our table, but there is no storage space to it. We might have to fix that. 🙂
I think your kitchen represents most of people with a modest home. Mine looks similar to yours. I, too, just do inexpensive updates. I’m looking forward to what you do to yours.
This is going to be great, and what perfect timing! Thank you!
I redid my kitchen with paint. I live alone and work at night, so I didn’t work on it every day…took me 5 months! My cabinets look wood grain, the formica counters look granite (complete with mica sparkles) and the back splash looks like tumbled tile (did that with 1/8″ painters tape and dry wall spackle!) I can’t wait to see your ideas on the pantry. Mine is deep and I can’t figure out how to store things so that they don’t get lost!
Eeeek, Cindy! I’m super excited to share my pantry with people like you because I know you will appreciate it! Wait until you see what I did to solve the same issue you’re having. 🙂 I ***love*** my pantry after this fix. It won’t be too long until that post is coming.
Love my kitchen but need help! This comes at a really good time. During the summer we got ride of linoleum in kitchen and the carpet that went from the edge of our kitchen to the family room to hardwood floors. LOVE the floor now and it has really made our kitchen look bigger. We did this in the hopes of getting an island next year. I too have a deep pantry, so can’t wait to see your solution to this…and I will do it!!
Thank you for doing this…Sandy
This should be VERY interesting….we moved into this house 3 years ago and we DOWNSIZED! I gave up my remodeled kitchen and new appliances for this house. I am trying to make it into a “home”. Slowly, the evolution is happening. Stripped the paint off cupboard doors, removed wallpaper, painted ceiling and walls. I will send you some photos of the before and now…still lots I would like to do or have done….
I also decided to be happy with my kitchen. It’s kind of like the childrens’ book “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie…” If I re-do the kitchen then I will want new dishes. Once I have new dishes, I will want new cookware. Then I will want to take gourment cooking classes. After the classes I will want to do more entertaining. To do more entertaining, I will need to update my dinning/living room…and so on. So I am more than happy to have what I have and a family that sits down to dinner together.
I am so encouraged by your post! We moved into a mobile home, the parsonage at our current church (plant).– which is approx. half the size of our house we moved from, with MUCH less storage space. I had gotten rid of much of our things, when I felt the Lord speak to me a little over a year ago and “get my house in order.” It’s so SO good when He speaks and we are obedient!!
I am learning contentment in this season. Thank you for this lovely reminder.
When my husband and I first got married, we moved into his mothers old house. It too had carpet in the kitchen. She LOVED it, she wanted to put carpet in her new houses kitchen ( but her husband wisely wouldn’t let her). I hated it! Worst idea ever. Do you know how hard it is to clean a whole gallon of milk out of carpet . It is impossible! It was everywhere we had wet carpet for days and it seeped under the fridge. It smelled like sour milk for weeks! My mother in law still wouldn’t let us rip it out. We even offered to pay for new flooring. It was horrible. When she finally sold the house guess what the first thing the new owners did? Yep they ripped out the nasty carpet. I would never put carpet in a kitchen or a bathroom. Worst idea ever!
How many drawers and cabinets do you have? I can see what’s on the side with your sink but I’m having trouble seeing what’s on the side with your stove and fridge.
I have 7 regular drawers, 1 deep drawer (next to the stove on the left), 5 lower cupboards (not including under the sink), 9 upper cupboards (not including the 2 small cupboards above the fridge and microwave). I hope that helps. 🙂
Hello! I’m enjoying your posts for the kitchen, but I have one problem. Could you put a link to the next post at the end of the prvious day’s page? I’m stuck on Day 4 & can’t find an index so I can continue with the next day. Thanks for your great ideas!
The links are up, Jill. 🙂 I got a little behind last week because I wasn’t feeling well. I hope you are enjoying the series!
Thank you, Ginny! I saw them & I found the index for all your posts & I have to say thanks for the inspiration to look at my kitchen differently & get it organized! 🙂
Can you tell me how many upper cabinets you have in your kitchen, how many lower cabinets, how many drawers, etc.
Hi Ginny, I have been receiving your wonderful organizations tips on facebook for some time now, but have never actually implemented them. As I look in my kitchen I am completely overwhelmed by what I see. It is a WRECK! I have not been the best homemaker the last couple of years. (After baby #4 came, it has been so hard to keep up with it all!) I want to be a wife who can keep things clean and organized (for longer than a day or two at a time), but it does not come naturally! Today I have determined to start with my kitchen and I am going to use your “31 Days..” to do it! I am excited and scared at the same time. The desire of my heart is to be a Proverbs 31 woman and to create a home that is a refuge for my husband and children. I’m thankful for this wonderful ministry you have and I will be posting my before and after pictures when I’m finished. I know I’m jumping in kind of late, but better late than never, right?!
Enjoying getting the emails every day this month and using some of your super simple and practical ideas to get my cabinets organized. I’ve found myself saying ‘why didn’t I think of that?!’ Thanks!
Hi Ginny
What do you do with the kids school papers and Art work? I have stuff from preschool & my daughter is 9 now.
I love to organize and see how others do it. I always get ideas that I can use. I plan on starting to rethink my kitchen this month, one zone at a time. It is a challenge to get a lot of use out of a small space. My kitchen is 13″ by 11. I was a food service manager for a retreat center so cooking is my thing. Can’t pass up that new gadget. But I find that I use things for awhile then don’t but maybe 3 years later want them again so put them out of the kitchen in another storage place. Thank you for your 31 day plan will be using it in Jan. Goal to do a zone in 15 min each day. Just a question did you finish the month? The last day I see is the junk drawer.
Thank you so much for taking the time to post your kitchen organzation tips. I found them practical and economical – they inspired me to tackle my large farmhouse style kitchen cabinets that had 23 years of clutter and “collections” – it took the better part of 2 weekends, but I now feel I’m using all of my space and I can actually find the things I need. My family is so impressed and I feel like I’ve had a kitchen makeover. Thank you , Thank you. Debbie
Oh, I’m so happy to hear this Debbie! I appreciate you taking the time to let me know!! Enjoy your “new” kitchen. 🙂
You have a wonderful kitchen! Mine is smaller and do not looks so warm and cozy as yours. I hope that with some of your advices my kitchen will looks a little bit cozier. Regards!
It’s easy to get carried away with all the glitz and glamor. I’m glad you took the frugal way in all this. Still trying this at our house.
Found this series through the pots and pans day, and I’m loving it. I’m a college student getting ready to move into my first apartment with my 3 best friends and roommates, and this is about to make organizing our kitchen SO much easier. Even better, one of the roomies and I are great at making things from wood, so quite a few things you bought we’ve already sketched up designs to build! Gotta same every dime. Thank you so much for this thread!!