Cupboards out of sight but not out of mind!

Cupboards and drawers. Where else do you throw the scrap paper, random nuts and bolts, sticky tape, safety pins, spare change, blue tac, excess ping pong balls, scissors, gift wrap supplies and paper plates?

It's true these items do need to be stored away because statistically these things are or will become useful. What's important is that everything has a systematic place. This makes searching through the cupboards a breeze because everything is clearly in it's correct spot cutting your searching time down to nil and making the task of packing away a joy :)

Often we get caught up in making our house clean and tidy for the purpose of appearances as our first priority and quickly stash unused and even unwanted items in our storage cupboards and compartments in the rush to have the house clean before your guests come over. This leads you to open up your linen cupboard one month before Christmas in search of your ornaments wondering to yourself what all this 'stuff' is doing in here because no one uses it anymore or never really did.

It's hard to throw things away for most people, especially if you've had it for a really long time.

Recently I helped a lady organise some forgotten cupboards in her kitchen. 50% of what was in those cupboards was no longer used and 50% was useful but not in proper oder.

Here are some before and after shots of how we helped sort through these forgotten cupboards...

the space in this cupboard was being used as a dumping ground for the non essentials and little nick knacks they didn't know what else to do with. It's important to keep these things (allen keys etc) just make sure there is a distinct place for these items.

BEFORE

 We cut the clutter and used this cupboard for storing tissues, extra glasses, vases and platters and those extra little nick knacks you'll defiantly need one day. But just not today.

AFTER

The before shot was missed on this cupboard. It was a miss match of what you see now + many other things. Grouping things together and putting them in containers helps to keep things in good working order and much easier to find what you're looking for. Take away menu's are being held together by a small bull clip on the bottom shelf. Also try having a display folder for this purpose if you love eating out!

Used as a recipe collection, first aid and other random things this cupboard needed some desperate TLC

BEFORE

 We sprawled out the First Aid contents and were eventually able to drop it down to a quarter in size

 The recipe collection was unused and outdated for this busy working Mum who expressed she has little time to cook these days anyway. We kept special recipes and ones she would realistically use. The rest were thrown out or passed on to her daughter.

 The END RESULT

Another top cupboard 

BEFORE

 AFTER

Spice and medicine cupboard

  BEFORE                                                                                                                                                           

AFTER

In the end our client said she felt much more excited to open and retrieve things from those cupboards. She felt a real sense of peace knowing everything had it's own system and place and she no longer had useless items taking up space for the sake of it!