Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Tidying Up: Oh My Day 9!

The KONMARI method kicked my butt today! I started simple with shoes. It only took me about 30 minutes to go from 60 pairs to about 40 pairs. Let's be honest...we all know which shoes bring us joy. As of today, I had completed all of the categories under clothes as well as books. KONMARI has the next category as paper, however my guy and I wanted to do paper together, so I agreed to hold off. Boy do I wish I had done paper today.

The next category in the KONMARI method is something she calls, Komono. Komono refers to miscellaneous items. There are so many categories within Komono that you could pretty much start anywhere. So I decided to start in the kitchen. I have "organized" my pantry many times since we have been in our house, but today I focused on tidying up everything the KONMARI way. Oh my goodness!

Mug Cabinet Before
Mug Cabinet After
First of all, there was no way I was taking every kitchen item out of my cabinets and determining what brought me joy. I decided to tackle it in stages. I started with glasses and mugs.Our cabinets have become pretty cluttered in this area, which in turn means we have a lot more on our counters than we need. I was even texting my guy pictures of his mugs to tell me which ones bring him joy. (I think I might be obsessed.) For each of my cabinets I was able to change the shelf heights and store my mini blender and smoothie materials in one, and all of my Keurig items in the other. Huge difference on our counters!

Glasses Before
Glasses After
My guy and I have always disagreed on how we store our glasses, glasses up or glasses down. I'm  an up girl and he is a down guy (Mainly because this is how we were raised.) Once we started living together, I compromised and became a glasses down kind of girl. However, after KONMARIng our glasses, I couldn't believe how many of our nice Crate and Barrel glasses were chipped on the rim, which of course does not bring me joy. According to Good Housekeeping, "The rim of the glass is the most delicate part of the glass, and therefore should be stored up or it will chip." So from now on we are Team Glasses Up, at least for our glassware.

Then I proceeded to organize the rest of our upper cabinets. Our cabinets are so tall. It is a beautiful kitchen, but for 5'4" me, I can't reach anything in the upper cabinets (Lucky for me, my guy is 6'4", but he isn't always home when I am cooking). It is such a pain. When we moved in, we placed mixing bowls on the "No Reach" zone. Ugh! This has been awful. Every time I bake, I need help getting bowls and supplies down.

Tidying the  upper cabinets, quickly turned into the pantry, which quickly turned into the island. It was interesting that the books I organized over the weekend, I felt like now needed a space. The KONMARI method says you will just know as you go through the process where things "feel" like they want to be stored. I don't know if my books "felt" it or I felt it but I am in heaven with my new pantry organization! Two shelves strictly devoted to my baking! I didn't take a "before" picture of the pantry because I hadn't planned to tidy up in there, but it all just sort of fell that way.

The big brown dog was not excited at all to KONMARI today. He still earned two cabinets of his own though in the "No Reach" zone... for obvious reasons.

P.S. Does anyone know a good place to donate kitchen items?

Bag Count:
Me: 7  plus 2 boxes of books and 1 small box of jewelry and 2 boxes of kitchen stuff.
My Guy: 2 bags
Trash Guy: 6 bags

4 comments:

  1. Vietnam Veterans Group picks up at the door! The take kitchen items and lots of other stuff!

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    1. Thanks Karla! Picking up at the door sounds perfect!

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  2. Come organize my house please.

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    1. :) I don't think I could do this for a living like the Konmari woman does. Phew! It is exhausting.

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