If you missed the first part of this kitchen transformation, we tackled cleaning out and organizing a pantry, desk area and cabinet. You can read more about that and see pictures here.
After completing the pantry, we worked on the next section of the kitchen which was mostly cabinets filled with glasses, cups, dishes, bake ware etc. I knew there might be a small problem when the homeowner mentioned something about not having any more room in the cabinets so they had started storing things on the counter…..primarily cups/water bottles.
The first cabinet contained glassware and coffee mugs. Not too horrible…..
We emptied the entire cabinet onto her kitchen table and then selected which ones she would keep and which ones would be donated. This went fairly quickly and I thought we would zip through the kitchen in no time.
That was until we hit the next cabinet, which contained plates and plastic cups/water bottles. We were able to get through the dishes quickly and then started with the cups. Oh, the cups! I thought this wasn’t bad until she told me it wasn’t all of them. We pulled them all out from different cabinets and put them on the table.
Not only did she have them in different cabinets, but she had an entire drawer of cups as well. Because why not?!
Can you take a guess as to how many cups are on this table? Yes, I counted all the cups because I have never seen so many cups before in one household.
If you guessed 144 cups, you would be right. There really are 144 cups on that table. If you think about that for a minute, 5 people live in this house. That means that each family member could use 28 cups before ever having to wash or use another cup. That’s almost a month’s worth of cups person. And it doesn’t include all the glassware from the first cabinet! It took a little bit longer deciding which cups had to go which cups could stay. There were certain memories attached to the cups/water bottles, like this one that had been in her cabinet for 14 years. I’m happy to say that it was donated and will make another child happy.
She was able to let this one go too since it was being recycled at Goodwill.
Here is what the cabinet looks like now. There are a few water bottles that were tall to go in here that we put in another spot that is easy for her children to access.
After getting through all the cups and memories, we started making good progress getting through the other cabinets. Here is the before and after of this cabinet which is used for spices and bake ware.
The medicine cabinet before and after.
Serving dishes and platters cabinet before and after.
Cabinet for pots and pans and baking items. I wasn’t able to get a full picture of what was in the cabinet before because it was so full.
Here is another pantry space in the kitchen that contains snacks, cereals and boxed items.
This kitchen was a lot of fun to work on because of all the different things we found and because there was such a major transformation with every drawer and cabinet space. We still laugh and joke about all the cups. In fact the homeowner just shared a story with me about them going out to eat after we had cleaned out her kitchen. The family was at a restaurant ordering and was asked if they would like to make a .50 donation to a charity. They said yes and didn’t think anything about it until they were given a FREE PLASTIC CUP because of their donation. Needless to say the cup did NOT come home with them, thank God!!
I cannot say enough about Simplified Home!! They are professional, hard working and creative. They really look at your lifestyle and organize your space accordingly!! Highly recommend!!! – Kathy
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