Virtute.org

I enjoy organizing.  I think it’s the payoff at the end.  I find a problem with how things are and I think about it until I have a solution.  Once I reorganize something, I find great joy in looking at the place I reorganized.  I recently embarked on a project to reorganize a kitchen for someone.  As I worked through this process, I started mentally making notes about the things I think are essential to organization and I thought I’d share them here on this blog. 

Consider the ‘real estate’ in your kitchen.  An item’s usage should determine it’s ‘real estate.’  High use items should have prime locations which are the easiest to access and most functional to their use.  The drawer below is the perfect example for this post.

This drawer is located under the breakfast bar which separates the kitchen from the dining room.  It is the perfect location for food storage containers for the following reasons: 

1. Since food storage containers are (or should be) high use items, they need to be in a place that does not require much or any bending and allows you to easily see and choose any size. 
2. The space is large enough to store lids on unique containers and next to containers that stack well.  (Side note:  I really like the color coding on this particular set of food storage containers which allows for easy pairing of lids to containers.)
3. The location of this drawer is key to it’s purpose and allows for smooth functionality.  After a meal the leftover food is naturally brought from the kitchen table to this counter where it can now be placed in a food storage container with ease.  With the dishwasher and sink directly behind this counter, dirty serving dishes are easily transferred to the sink after being emptied.

This drawer previously housed a collection of office supplies (rulers, pens, calculators, glue, ect), kite strings, phone books, and cookbooks and many of the items in the drawer were inaccessible under other items.  The majority of these items were what I would consider low use items (at least low use for a kitchen).