Here's what we did...                                         

Our first step in this organizing project was to make a plan.  We sat down with the homeowner to learn about her family’s needs, activities, and goals in the kitchen. We discussed her family’s eating and entertaining habits as well as other functions that were routinely performed in the kitchen. With all this in mind we began our task of reorganizing her kitchen in a way that would best meet this family’s routine and goals.

We followed our STACKS method by selecting an area, planning the time, and dividing the project into achievable segments.  Our next step was purging and grouping like items together.  After we did this, we saw what we had left to organize.  

A new pantry closet was installed to add more shelves than the original one had.  This had a definite impact on maximizing space.  We then gave every item in the kitchen a designated place by choosing locations that were most appropriate for the items and their categories. 

We used wire shelves and expandable shelves to maximize the space in the cabinets and under the sink.  We used drawer organizers to maximize space and give order to the drawers.  We put recipes cards and clippings into recipes books that were specifically designed for collected recipes.  We set up a small filing system to accommodate the papers the homeowner routinely processes and uses in the kitchen.  We put the unpaid bills in a Bill Paying Organizer and replaced her tattered Greeting Card Organizer with a new one.

When we put the items back into the kitchen we made sure that the labels on the cans and boxes were turned forward and that the writing on all the boxes was going in the same direction.  We next placed category labels on the shelves and drawers where we felt they were needed.

Our last step was taking a look at the entire kitchen to see if it met our goals and to complete any last minute tweaking.