29 Day Challenge: Down to the Wire!

Happy Friday, everyone! How is your organizing going? I'm starting to get my groove on this and although I was sick all week, I tackled a few more cupboards this week. With only four left to go - plus the dreaded Spice Cupboard, I think I have it all well in hand!

My purge piles aren't big, but I did do some big organizing! Our kitchen has a phenomenal amount of drawer space - seven drawers, to be exact. The unfortunate fact is that two of the drawers are "junk" drawers. The first one I tackled this week was JJ #2.

When I opened it, it looked like this:

And when I finished, it looked like this:










Simple right? The blue shopping bag you see in the first picture is filled with manuals - all the manuals for everything in our home... Dating back to the original 1970's washing machine (which is what we still use). We aren't in the bag often but when the time comes, it is a pain to find anything - the contents get dumped out and we're madly rifling through trying to find the dishwasher manual so we can order a part or get the serial number for the dryer. It may have made more sense to have them in our file cabinet but they have always been here (and this is where the previous owners kept them) so we left them there. But they needed structure so I filed them by room.

Lazy Susan (after)

Next, I hit up one of the two lazy Susan's... As a designer, there are some serious flaws with a typical (old style) Lazy Susan. They are round. Boxes are not. Secondly, building a corner cupboard is a big waste of space. In any event, my kitchen is the way it is and I can't change it but if anyone has any ideas on how to better utilize my Lazy Susan, I'd appreciate any tips!

Utensil Drawer (before)

Utensil Drawer (after)

The other big organization job I tackled was the utensil drawer. I purged it last year as part of my 52 Week Organizational Challenge but I'm having a hard time keeping it tidy. When I went through it today, there wasn't much to get rid of but I tried to sort it in a manner in which I use it - frequent items up front, less frequent tucked at the back of the drawer. I'm not completely happy with it (because I'll have to pretty much empty the drawer to get to things like the kebab skewers) but it is about as logical as I can figure at this time.

How are you fairing with your challenge? Laura's words hit home today - "...purging alone is an ongoing process." I adore the idea of a "Donation Station" - we've got three of those going on right now - one of which is from Week 16 of the 52 Week Challenge! Yes, I realize I have an issue... Thanks for stopping in and we'll see you in five days for the final share!