Reining in the Chaos

With five kids running around, there is always chaos and clutter. We have decided this year that we are going to take back control of our home. Since there are only so many hours in a day, I will have to make changes a little at a time. I decided to tackle a space we use every single day first. Our drink station and drink storage cupboard.

Before

This counter usually ends up with whatever the kids didn’t feel like putting away piled on it. It is a pain to make any hot cocoa, coffee, or tea when you have to dig it out first. I wanted to find a way to organize everything in a way that it can be easily used. I’ve seen all these cute ways to display these types of things in a much more functional way. I found this cute tray to organize my frequently used teas, stevia, and diffuser packets, although I got it in white. Left and right are how I arranged it in my kitchen.

For the coffee and cocoa I needed to find containers with a smaller footprint than the big cans. I also wanted something with a good seal to keep them fresh while also being easy and convenient to use. I searched through a ton of canisters and jars and finally decided the tall storage jars below would be perfect. They make good use of the vertical space and take up very little counter space.

Finally, I moved the toaster to another counter to make this counter much more functional and less cluttered for making drinks.

I also got a smaller version of these same jars to organize teas into that didn’t have individually wrapped bags. I could never find anything I was looking for in the cupboard without everything falling down on me. It made me just give up on even drinking tea for a long time. Not only were there a bunch of different types of tea, there were multiple boxes of most. With these cute spice jars below I was able to combine boxes and take up a lot less space in the same cupboard. I even had extra labels to use to label the tall jars I got for the countertop! I was also able to use an extra on to put my stevia in for making tea.

One last thing was needed to make the drink storage cupboard easier to find things in. I have used these expandable wire shelves in several cupboards in my kitchen and they help use more of the vertical space there too. Most cupboard shelves have a lot more vertical space than is actually used. With these you add a shelf and make use of all that dead space.

And with all that space saved in the cupboard, I was able to put our protein powders up there using these storage containers. Now I no longer have the large protein containers taking up space on top of the refrigerator. It’s a win win.

So far I am very happy with how everything turned out. I can actually find my tea when I want to. Perfect timing for my next task. Giving Up Soda…

After