Kitchen Tour 2018: Our House on the Hill

Welcome to our new kitchen tour!  Grab your favorite cup, maybe even a snack and come take a look around.  We have a ton of photos- even inside the cabinets.

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18 Sensible Food and Pantry Organization Items That YOU Can Use.

While, I love all those beautiful pantries where everything is colored coded, has a perfect home and is organized in beautifully coordinated labeled pieces, I realize that for many of us having fancy food and pantry organization is simply not possible.  We are happy just to be even remotely organized.  I think that beautiful, matching, color coded pantries are great, BUT I think that  “Using what you have, where you are, for what you need”, especially while you are trying to build your emergency fund or pay off debt, is even more important.  Being organized in the kitchen can save you money, but I don’t feel it’s necessary to go broke to get there.  I know we didn’t. Read more »

14 Fun, Simple Ways to Organize Your Kitchen Utensils Today

14 Fun, Simple Ways to Organize Your Kitchen Utensils Today

Everyone has kitchen utensils, probably oodles & oodles of kitchen utensils.  Utensils you can’t live without, utensils you have never used, utensils you don’t know how to use and even utensils you don’t know where they came from.  Yep, everyone has utensils.

At our house we have two drawers, a Pampered Chef Tool Caddy & Crock and even two small lidded containers on our lazy Susan with “utensils.”  I LOVE my utensils and yes, you will notice than 80% of them are from Pampered Chef.  I used to sell it and I find it very helpful in aiding me in cooking and prepping with my EDS.  This is where I confess that I actually purged my collection of kitchen utensils less than a year ago, and I still have ALL of these left plus the two overflow containers on the lazy Susan.  I even revisited the sorting method for this series and I still kept them ALL.  I WANT them all.  I USE them all.  That means, I need to organize them all.

What about you ?  How many do you have?  Are they stored in a pretty, practical way that works for you?

If so, fantastic.  If not, we have put together this great list as well as a Pinterest Board full of AWESOME photos, ideas and links.

Click the photos or blue words below to take you to the original sites, more great ideas and DIY tutorials.  We tried to inspire you by sharing items you could find within your home or create in a day.  For more in depth projects or items to purchase, be sure to follow our Kitchen Utensil Organization Board here. Read more »

12+ Simple Ways to Clear & Organize Your Kitchen Counter Today

12+ Simple Ways to Clear & Organize Your Kitchen Counter Today

I don’t know about your house, but ours could definitely use more counter space.  We have a large island, but we TRY (emphasis on TRY) to keep it clear to be used as a prep area, serving area and work space.  I must admit we do not always succeed, but we try.

When I took a poll recently the top three items people felt were cluttering their kitchen counters were

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Controlling the Chaos Month 3 (Days 61-91)

If you are just joining the “Controlling the Chaos” Challenge we want to say Welcome we are happy to have you with us.

If you have been with us for awhile and followed along from the beginning I want to offer you a great, big high five!

You have conquered your paper piles, taken control of your digital disasters, and are learning to maintain your success thus far.

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What A 3-Layer Cake Taught Me About Decluttering and Special Moments

For starters, lets just put it out there.

I am an (undiagnosed) 42 year old mom with ADD, OCD and hoarding tendencies.  A crazy combination, let me tell ya.  I thrive on being involved in lots of stuff, and I am already planning new things before that “stuff” is even finished.  Sound familiar?  I am one of those people who could have a five bedroom house with three projects in progress in every room (and 100 more stacked in another).  Of course, these projects would be spread ALL over the room and take days and days to finish because they would need to be perfect while the rest of my house fell apart and I had a nervous breakdown, over the mess and stress.  I would still be planning my next project.  I swear, my brain never shuts down.

I love to recycle and “buy” things because they are cheap or free.  Yard sales, clearance, thrift stores, estate sales, these are my nemesis.  I bring tons of things home for “future projects” that I end up just moving around and reorganizing 100x.  Can I get an amen from anyone like me?

This past December I became very sick.  More than my usual challenges.  I could barely stand up, walk and breathe without severe pain or struggling for breath.  Then a routine exam showed a mass in my right breast and we decided to have a precautionary biopsy.

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Simple Tips For Decorating Your Cabinet Tops

The hard part is DONE- now comes the FUN!  DECORATING your cabinet tops.

For quick tips on deep cleaning your upper cabinets before decorating, click here.

Simple Tips For Decorating Your Cabinet Tops

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Simple Tips for Cleaning & Maintaining The Area Above Your Cabinets

For years my family and I have looked for a larger, more open, affordable home and in December 2011, I am happy to say…We found it!  It was PERFECT- 5 bedrooms, handicapped restrooms, HUGE patio doors, large windows and an open floor plan with cabinet tops I could decorate.

My dream come true!……..OR not?

As I began planning the display for Christmas (we moved in on Dec. 16^th) I ran into the first dilemma of decorating those recessed cabinet tops.  DIRT!

Yucky, sticky, icky, dirt.

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