I started small and manageable: the little tea cabinet. It was so stuffed, we couldn't shut the door properly! Now it all fits (barely):
(I've got to polish off some of that boxed stuff, because I want to fill this cabinet with my own grown and foraged herbs.)
That was satisfying, so I felt able to tackle a bigger mess: the cookbooks in my island. They'd outgrown their space. I gave each book a critical perusal, and was able to weed some out. Nice fresh shelves:
(There are toys interspersed because if I put toys in there, the babies and toddlers are less likely to pull out my cookbooks. The basket contains the heap of bibs.)
Time for something more fun. I did these shelves, refolding my vintage aprons and dish cloths and re-arranging a few tchotchkes:
With all that accomplished, I felt able to tackle the biggest task of all: the dish shelves. These were a wreck. The dust! The spider webs! (The stuff way up high is rarely used, or, apparently, cleaned.) Some of the shelves were crammed too tight. Some of the stuff we use daily was on the top shelf, where (short) Andi could never put it away. Some stuff had no place. Now, it's SO much better. (Of course, I still envy lovely cohesive things like Martha Stewart's all-white dishes, but this is more real-life us; things given to us or bought over the years, old and new, all mixed together.)
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