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| The inside of my kitchen cupboard - 90% done. |
My husband and I are both neat freaks, and I am not kidding or exaggerating when I say that we probably have some OCD tendencies (especially him!). Everything has to be tidy, in its place and absolutely no clutter is allowed. This is just how we like things at our house. I must confess though that I am a pack-rat of sorts, so I do secretly hoard certain things (usually odd & ends for my craft projects, or empty tins/ boxes/ jars which I plan to reuse) around random parts of the house, but they are kept completely out of sight and out of my husband's way so that he does not feel tempted to throw them all out!
I posted this picture showing the inside of my kitchen cupboard the other day, because it made me chuckle that my sister jokingly called me "Monica from FRIENDS". I didn't even think that anyone would be that interested, but it's gotten a steady number of Likes and I received some feedback that I should do a blog post about how I organised it, so here it is! :D
EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE, AND A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING
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| My various sauces, seasonings and condiments. |
I feel that to make things look less cluttered, it's good to get little trays so everything has its place in the cupboard, rather than randomly chucking it on the shelves in any available spot. That way, you can arrange everything according to its purpose. For example, my cooking sauces/ seasonings are all in one corner and I try to arrange them according to height, or whichever I use more often will be placed in front, within easier reach.
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| My tiny bottles of food dye, which I use for Gemini Grrl's homemade playdough. |
These tiny bottles of food dyes are in their own tiny basket (which fit PERFECTLY and you have NO idea about the immense joy I get from this!). I bought these trays and baskets from various different shops such as: Daiso, ABC, The Value Shop and random neighbourhood home-essentials shops. They are super cheap and range from anywhere between $1 - $3. I would have preferred if all of them were the same colour though, but oh well.
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| Magazine holder from Daiso: $2 |
I use a magazine holder from Daiso for $2 and use it to arrange my clingwrap, tin foil, and boxes of ziplock bags. I contemplated mounting the rolls of clingwrap and tin foil onto the inside of my cupboard door, so that's something you could do as well.
MAXIMISE YOUR SPACE
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| Baskets that easily pull out, stored underneath stacked shelves. |
Our kitchen is small, so I need to really make full use of every single bit of space to store all my things. I like my kitchen cupboard a lot and like how wide the spaces are between each shelf. Besides stacking everything up on top of each other, the tidier alternative is to buy these small stackable plastic shelves. I got them from the ABC shop for less around $2 ~ $3. They come in half-sizes as well (see the top shelf), which is where I keep my bottles of herbs and dry seasonings and jars of sauces. Underneath, I put 2 pull-out baskets (from Daiso) and they are used to store my baking ingredients (left) and our breakfast spreads (right).
HERD UP ALL LOOSE ITEMS
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| Candies and chocolates storage |
You know when you open up a bag of candy of individually wrapped chocolates, sometimes they actually survive one sitting and so you have leftovers to be enjoyed another day. I used to just tie the bag up again with a rubberband or pour them into the side pocket shelf of my fridge door. But that's quite messy and doesn't look very nice. So it's better to contain your sweet chaos into individual jars, plus it keeps the ants away!
The plastic jar on the left is a free gift when I bought some Quaker oats, but I use it to store all my loose candies and chocolates, because it's nice and see-through. The one on the right is from Tupperware and was part of a kiddy set which came with 2 milk bottles. I use this to stash away all of Gemini Grrl's Kinder Joy and Kinder Surprise chocolate eggs, which she's only allowed as a treat.
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| Our Thai Fragrant Rice |
Our rice is stored in its own rice-bin, which comes with a measuring cup. I think I bought this at Giant for less than $20. It fits about 5kg of rice and I love the flip lid! It also has tiny wheels at the bottom, plus a handle one one side so I can easily pull it out when I need to cook rice.
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| Cooking oil |
After frying keropok (fish crackers) or whatever, sometimes I have some leftover cooking oil which can still be reused once more (but only once please!), so instead of leaving it sitting in the pan overnight, or pouring it into a normal container (like what I used to do, but it was proving to be rather messy), it's good to store it in a squeeze-bottle like this one, which is normally used for chilli sauce and ketchup. It has a tiny nozzle at the top and should be airtight. This one has a flower-shaped cover which swivels off easily, and I got it for less than $3 from Japan Home. This way, you can have perfect control over the amount of oil you need for the next time you're frying an egg or something.
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| Kitty Pinocchio bag-tie? Lol! |
But if you have just a tiny bit of candy left and really could not be bothered to transfer them into a small container (plus you know you're going to eat them within the next few days anyway), then instead of ugly rubberbands, you can opt for cute bag-ties. I got these from (surprise surprise) Daiso, which came in a pack of 2. There were other animals as well, but obviously we all know which are my favourite ;) You can get colourful bag clips from supermarkets or home-essentials shops as well, for under $5.
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| Reusable bag-ties - pack of 2 for $2 from Daiso. |
REMOVE UNNECESSARY PACKAGING
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| Small snack-packs inside the big bag. |
When you open up a bag or snack-packs, you get a few smaller packs inside. Toss the bigger bag and just neatly arrange the snack-packs on your trays. But of course, if your bags are not open yet, then you don't have to open them up to take out the snack-packs.
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| Neatly arrange your snack-packs. |
I got this large tray from Daiso as well ($2). I swear, every time I walk inside that store to innocently buy just 1 item, I end up with a whole basket full of things! :P There is a huge Daiso near our house (straight bus ride about 10 minutes away), so that's where I go on a regular basis!
REUSE JARS & BOTTLES
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| Reused glass jars for my curry powders and dry goods. |
Don't throw away those jam jars! They can be reused to store your curry powders or other various dry goods. Just wash them thoroughly and remove the labels by soaking them in hot soapy water (or rub with cooking oil, then wash). You can even add your own labels so you know what exactly the contents are. Oh, can you spot the reused Nutella jar above? Hehehe!
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| My sugar bottle |
This is my sugar bottle, which originally was a sugar bottle as well, but once it finished, I just removed the label (because it was getting a little torn) and used stickers to relabel it, then refilled it with sugar from those boring old plastic packs. I love the tiny flip-top with the sprout for easy pouring.
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| My DIY labels. Hehe! |
If you don't have pretty letter stickers, fret not, just do it totally DIY like what I've done with some of my other plastic jars. After filling them up, I simply cut out portions of the original packaging and sticky-taped it onto the lids for easy identification. Gets the job done and doesn't cost me a thing. I love reusing my stuff for other purposes! The top two jars with red lids are from some Hari Raya/ Eid snacks, and the one with the blue lid is a reused Marshmallow Creme jar.
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| Dry Pasta |
Ok, so this is not really a "recycled" jar - I bought it for less than $10 from Japan Home - but it can be reused to contain many things. Usually I will fill it with dry pasta, flour, brown sugar, or dry beans.
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| Airtight glass jars |
This was a free gift because I filled out some survey form at a shopping mall once. It comes with a weird little pump thingy which you place on top of the jar and it apparently helps to suck out all the air from the jar. I use this to store my baking soda.
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Don't feel disheartened though if your cupboard is not neatly arranged or has clear labels on everything. Honestly, my kitchen is far from perfect, and so is the rest of my house. My fridge gets cluttered up pretty quickly as well, so that's my next project to tackle! Just take things one step at a time and make it a habit to always tidy up when you can, so it will become easier as the time goes. Do share your before and after pictures with me if you'd like, or feel free to ask me any questions in the comments section below! :)
