Storing Food Containers

Hi there! It's been a while since I posted; we've had a week of Internet Drama. Don't you just love those weeks?? ;-)

Today I opened my cupboard to find a container to put the left-over chicken in, and this is what my "containers basket" looked like. Eeek..

Close-up of the mess-

I keep my "tupperware" or containers for food, in this basket which I LOVE. It has handles so I can easily bring the whole thing out to look for what I need. I also use one of these for my "baking things"-

Anyway- back to the food containers, and the disorder. Aargh!! I hate this! Especially when I'm in a hurry, it's a nightmare. And this isn't even that many containers- I am using quite a few in the fridge at the moment.

I do try to keep on top of keeping my food containers organised, but it's definitely one of those never-ending jobs that needs a little constant attention.

SO- time to organise the containers basket.

One way I do this is to sort out shapes- "like with like". So round ones together, rectangle ones together.

Then stack.

I then put all the lids together into another container (this one is missing a lid so it's not very handy otherwise).

It's pretty obvious that I have more lids than containers- but I can't bear to throw them away in case the containers turn up one day (and Murphy's Law suggests that this would happen should I throw them). The spare lids are also handy for when I'm painting or doing crafty things.

I like this system when I have a lot of containers, because I can still fit them into the basket neatly by stacking matching shapes and "like with like".

Another system I use when I don't have a lot of containers, or I have extra shelf/drawer space, is storing the containers with the lid ON. I really like this system because it cuts out searching for the matching lid! It's not very space-efficient but BOY is it handy.

Here is my basket organised this way, with the lids on the containers.

If I won the lottery and if I didn't care about cutting down on plastics for environmental reasons, I would start afresh with food containers. I would use this wonderful system I heard about from a very organised lady I know. The colour of the lid is specific to the size and shape of the container. BRILLIANT. So for e.g. all small round containers have red lids; all large square containers have blue lids, and so on. Wouldn't that be wonderful- instead of searching through all the lids for the right fit- to be able to quickly pick out the right one by colour?? Love it. But alas, I cannot afford and I doubt our environment can afford, for me to start this system by scratch. I very rarely buy any new containers these days, I just recycle the ones that food comes in or Shane brings a few used ones home from work. And of course from the odd occasion we get an Indian Take-away, I always keep those.

How do you store your food containers? Do you have way more than me and how do you keep on top of it all?

Space and Time

When you have an area that is over-crowded and messy- and you just can't get it organised- it's time to move some of the contents out. Whether it be a cupboard, a drawer, the kitchen, the garage- the same rule applies. If it's too crowded, something has to go. Now it's up to you to decide if you want to donate the 'things that have to go', give them to a friend, or store them somewhere else in the house. The third choice here is a little risky- do you have another area in the house or garage that you can store extra items in?

Basically, when I am organising one of my own cupboards that is too full, I go through item by item deciding if I really want that item or if it can go. Sometimes it can feel really liberating letting certain things go. Especially if it's going to a good home. For example, in the kitchen, extra toasters and kettles will always find a welcome home with a young person moving into their first flat. Or extra linen/blankets are always wanted in charity shops, especially in this bizarre time of natural disasters all over the world. It's a good feeling to know that at the same time as de-cluttering your home, you are also helping someone in need.

Back to the third option- should the item be stored somewhere else in the home? Do you have a top shelf up high somewhere not being used? I like to think of cupboards as a giant jigsaw puzzle. It's amazing how much can be stored somewhere, when items are placed exactly in the right way. It really helps having the right equipment too- cardboard boxes stacked can store a lot more in a space than merely having the items there on their own. Square or rectangle things fit better than free-flowing forms, usually.

Obviously for this option to be successful, you need to look at the items and decide which ones you use and need on a regular basis, and which you rarely or never use at all. I always only keep things I actually use, within arms reach. For example in my kitchen, I only have a couple of pots and pans in a deep drawer. I know that I only use these particular pots and pans daily. We do have other ones, but those are kept in the corner drawer that's harder to get to. It's a decent area of space down there, and perfect to store those items I rarely use. Perhaps I would need them once or twice a month. I know where they are, and it's not too difficult getting down there to reach them on the odd occasion.

This same rule applies all over the house. In my bathroom, I only keep a few make-up items that I use daily or weekly- one mascara, one face powder, one brown eye liner, one pink rouge, a few lip sticks and eye shadows. There's no need for me to over-crowd this one drawer with makeup I don't use regularly. But I don't want to throw the other makeup away. So I have a shoe-box of extras that I store in the spare bedroom (Peanut's bedroom-) in the cupboard. The box is labelled 'make-up'. I know it's there, for the odd occasion where I might feel like wearing blue eye shadow (!).



Extra makeup shoe box



I realise this may be very different in your situation. Shane and I don't have a lot of possessions- I guess in a way we are minimalists. I am always trying to simplify our life and I do this by ensuring I don't collect too many 'things' along the way. I try to live by the 'one in, one out' rule, with things such as shoes. When I occasionally buy a new pair of shoes, I know it's time to let go of an old pair I no longer wear. Especially as the area where I store my shoes is limited. Limited space = limited items that can live there.

Go through your house and garage slowly and take a good look around. In the garage, look up. Can you (or a Mr-) attach beams or poles along the ceiling and store long items such as ski's or bicycles rarely being used, up there? Can you put hooks on the wall to hang things from, or place a shelf extender on top of a bookcase? Usually it doesn't take long to find extra 'space' somewhere around the home. Just make sure if you do use cardboard boxes, to write on the front what you've placed in there. I always do this, either with a printed label or a thick black marker pen because I have a terrible memory. A few days afterwards I will have no idea what I put in that box up there on the top shelf.

It does take time to do this kind of work. Don't take on too much at one time- a little bit done here and there around the house will slowly but surely get your goals achieved. One drawer one weekend, or do the garage in your holidays taken off work. I always make sure to finish one job before tackling the next, otherwise things get messy and too overwhelming; and it can make you want to give up and sit down with a bottle or two of wine (in my case, in the pre-Peanut days!). Stay focused, keep that one job in mind, get it finished and reward yourself. Have a few days break before attempting the next task. There's no hurry.

A Kitchen Challenge- Pt 2

Another challenge in this same kitchen, was the height of the top cupboards. They were above head level, so it was difficult to reach up and bring heavy objects down, such as these platters and bowls-

So I moved these down to a lower drawer

I find that "less is more" when it comes to organising heavier objects such as these platters. The more that are stored in the one place, the more difficult it can be to access the one you are after. So instead of over-crowding this drawer, I also used this cupboard which is underneath the end bench, to store the remainder platters. Also here are the cake trays and oven trays, all kept upright and beautifully neat thanks to yet another Howard's product. These plastic stands are fantastic! They are of the perfect weight and have textured surface, so there is no chance things will slide around or break.

Back to the higher cupboards- here is a before photo of vases and beautiful little coffee cups. Also up there are some small glass cake stands that the Mum wanted to be able to reach, without having to get the step-ladder out

I discovered that the shelves were easy to move- so I did just that. I also moved the coffee cups to the cupboard next door, and placed the small cake stands here on the lower shelf which are easier to reach. Even though the vases are now higher, they are stil easy to access, as you naturally reach for the bottom of the vase to bring it down.

This family are big on parties- and apparently throw fantastic ones, isn't that great? I'm looking forward to throwing children's birthday parties myself one day :-) Their "party cupboard" would get a lot of use throughout the year, so it needed a little help to stay organised. I was impressed with how many wonderful party things they had- fun party hats, table cloths, sparklers, decorations, candles, etc etc.

It didn't take me long to group like items together and pop them into these inexpensive boxes from Ikea, and label the boxes. Now the family can easily find the right items for the next party-

The tall bottles such as oil, tomato sauce etc, had to stay up in one of these top cupboards due to their sizes. I put them into these little baskets, so the whole basket can be grabbed instead of having to bring each sauce down one by one. It also helps prevent things getting lost at the back of the cupboard. Before-

After- in baskets-

OK just one more before and after which I love- these are from under their sink-

Add some pretty baskets, organise and Oooh lovely!

'Til next time, see you!

A Kitchen Challenge- Pt 1

One of my organising jobs last year was in this beautiful kitchen. It was a lovely design but definitely raised a challenge- there was no tall pantry for food- only deep drawers.

The Mum of the household was at her wits' end with the deep drawers, because as soon as she had put the tinned food away, she could no longer see what was where. As you can see, only the tops of the tins and jars are visible and most of the tops are plain.

I went through all the drawers and found that some of the lower ones weren't being used. I knew that I could spread the higher drawers' contents throughout these lower ones. This meant I could use these fantastic drawer organisers, bought from the wonderful Howard's Storage World (I'm not being paid for advertising here; perhaps I should look into this...). Unfortunately I don't have a photo of them on their own, but they are a plastic version of this one

Hopefully you can see what they are like, in this after photo. You can see the job they do anyway- they let tins and jars lie back but not completely flat, so that you can clearly see the label.

If anybody would like a better picture of these drawer organisers I can go back to Howard's and take a photo of one. Here is another one helping with spices

This drawer is right next to the cooktop, so it made sense to also have the large knives here. We didn't like the way the knives were loose though, so I found this gorgeous drawer knife-block (also from Howard's)

Isn't it lovely!! Here is a close-up :-)

Large utensils drawer, before a culling (unwanted items were donated to a charity shop)

And after the culling- now things that are used in the household are easy to find -

Here is another one of those drawer organisers, being used for breakfast spreads

I will continue with A Kitchen Challenge- Part 2, soon :-)
Happy mid-week!!
Xxo