The time has come…to declutter the kitchen dishes, pots, pans, utensils, storage containers…

Once again, I broke this down into smaller groupings. This was useful not only to create manageable tasks for the time I had, but because it limited things to groups that would fit on my table, so I could work there.

First of all were the eating and serving dishes and utensils.

I know mugs are an item people commonly have to excess. So do we, I guess; but I wanted to keep them all, so I repurposed a couple for storage uses elsewhere: one holds my makeup brushes, and one holds our stainless steel straws.

I almost forgot that I had a box of disposable items in the closet: paper plates, napkins, plastic straws, and salvaged cutlery packets from takeout. Although we’ve never used them often (even before zero waste), I liked having them on hand. Or did I? I’m not sure. I think I liked the idea of potentially using them, or having the option, or something…. But in fact, most of the time I forgot they existed, even when we had people over for a casual meal and they might theoretically have been convenient. I decided to keep a few pretty seasonal paper napkins, and the paper plates, and discard all the rest. (I arranged to give them away to suitable people and places.)

Next were the food preparation items like pans, bowls, utensils, etc. Where is the picture? I don’t know! I thought I took one.

Most of these I kept, except for a few little bits. Most of my discarded items were plastic things that I want to replace with wood or stainless steel.

Finally, I got out all the food storage. A lot of my containers were in use in the fridge and pantry, so they didn’t get sorted here, but I did glance over them to remind myself what was there. You can see that I am an avid collector of glass jars.

I discarded a few plastic lids whose containers had long gone, and I’m planning to phase out these remaining plastic containers anyway. I think I discarded one jar as well, but I use them constantly, so I kept the others.

Putting everything back, I reevaluated my organisation. It would be boring to share it all, because it was like this: I decided to put the crock pot down with the pans and the salad spinner up high, and thendishwasherdetergentuphightoowhereit’smostuseful,andthentheclingfilmetc.withallthebackupcleaningsupplies,andthenthecrystalinthepantryinsteadofthelaundryroom…

I mean, it’s not interesting to read about switching things around in cabinets. However, I did follow one KonMari method practice: keep similar materials together. Most notably, I paired my fancy crystal with my glass jars and put them all on shelves together. This required moving some linens, which are now housed with all my cleaning cloths so that all my kitchen textiles are together. So: glass with glass, and fabric with fabric.

See all the pretty glass against the white shelves? Before, this was a collection of boxes, linens, and messy things. Now it looks much cleaner. I wouldn’t have normally thought of putting my nice crystal with my workaday glass jars, because they have different uses; but it lifted and simplified this whole storage area to keep them together.

You know what? That marks the end of the Komono section of the KonMari method. If you don’t remember, that refers to miscellaneous household items. Now, I do have a few more categories to plough through before I get to sentimental items, because I want to tackle the following: more baby things, and a lot of digital items. Digital is what I’m doing next!