We all have dishes, pots and perhaps many other items in our homes that we used seldom if ever. In this case, the client rarely if ever served fondu and now that her children were away at university, it seemed even less likely she would ever use it. The client was not interested in a garage sale and the pot contained enough sentimental value, that she wanted to find a new home where it would be used.
Sound familiar?
A helpful approach to shedding these objects is to ask yourself a) how often do I use it? b) how easily can I replace it or borrow another one if and when I do need it.
Ask around family or friends to see if anyone else would like a fondu pot or if they have family heading off to university or setting up a home that might like one. If they already have one, ask if you could borrow it from time to time.
Archive for Kitchen – Page 3
For many people, the pantry shelves represent the last frontier of organizing in the kitchen. Never was this more true that in my own kitchen, despite being in business for over 3 years as a professional organizer.
Organizing a pantry, often filled with half-full boxes of dry goods, is an exercise in matching up the right container with the right food stuff to fit in the right space. Remember those pre-school “fit the right shape into the right hole”? Here are some strategies to help you along:
- Rigid containers always store better than floppy bags. It doesn’t matter whether you are purchasing food storage containers from a direct marketing distributor or the dollar store, consider repackaging your dry goods out of their original product bag into a rigid food storage container.
- Go vertical – often we loose valuable storage space by not using up the full height of a storage shelf. Try and fill up as much of the shelf height as possible. If necesary, consider investing in some additional shelf steps to turn a tall shelf into two shorter shelves.
- Label – no surprise here. Labels provide directed choice. It’s like opening up the pantry and finding the road map with your route already marked to the wild rice or icing sugar.
- Buy only what you use – get rid of what you don’t. If your family won’t eat the whole wheat pasta no matter how many different versions of their favourite sauce you put on it – get rid of it. (Maybe the neighbour’s children will eat it?). Your pantry space is valuable – don’t use it to warehouse food you won’t use.
- Group similar items together. If all the vinegar is organized together on the shelf, determing if you have any balsamic for the new salad dressing recipe is much easier.
- Enjoy! After your hard work of sorting, repackaging and organizing the food – plan a great meal for yourself and/or your family to celebrate all the great food you found in there!
Colour can be a quick and easy way to organize anything from toys to files. When we organize we sort (small, medium, large widgets) pattern (like things together) and decide (keep, sell, toss). The same is true for storage and retrieval activity; looking for a spice (sort by alphabet?), filing paper (sort and pattern this year, last year, food, rent, utilities etc) and making decisions at every step.
Coloured boxes, baskets, labels or other storage tools provide an easy first sorting mechanism. Each child could be assigned a colour for their toys (John gets the blue toy bucket) sports gear (Jane’s labels, bag and towel are blue) or items on the calendar.
It is helpful to limit the number of colours to a minimum of choices. Use colour for high level choices. For example, if you run a home based business, try using one colour to sort between business and personal files (business is blue, personal is green). Too many colour choices can increase organizing challenges especially for individuals who are easily distracted and have difficulty focussing.
Are all your spices in the same room?
If they are in the same room, are they on the same shelf/cupboard/drawer?
If they are on the same shelf/cupboard/drawer, do you have more then one container of any one spice?
Are there any contianers with expired best before dates?
Are the containers labelled with the name of the spice they contain?
Are they sorted by alphabet or type or frequency of use?
Do you use them or are they for decoration?
We live in a “mature” residential in Toronto. Translation: the water pipes are old and the community has had four water pipes break in as many months. Today was our street’s turn and by 7 am neighbours were out trying to unplug the leaves from the sewer covers as the street flooded with water. By 4:30 pm a knock on our door heralded the arrival of the works truck with the news that there were 34 broken mains in the city today and the water would be off from 5 pm for 4 to 5 hours. Perfect timing; right through arsenic hour for those with kids.
Like everyone else on the block I filled the tub and all the pots I could manage and was left wishing I had more, and bigger, pots to fill. No, I reminded myself, then I would have more pots to look after, manager, store, sort etc. It occurred to me that too many cooking pots is not an indulgence I often come across with my clients. Other kitchen indulgences like pot holders, towels, spices, knives and the like are often a challenge in calming and decluttering a kitchen but pots have not yet surfaced as a collectable. Perhaps some of you have a difference experience. I’d love to hear from anyone who struggles to manage their pot collection and what their issues might be.
