Got to organize, got to organize, I have got to organize my kitchen…
Ok. This is starting to get nuts. I’m nuts. My food situation is nuts. Oh my goodness, I just realized I am completely out of nuts. Or am I?
What’s wrong, Laura?
Nothing’s wrong actually. :) And really, I’m kind of having fun as I face this new “food challenge.” But I also feel like I’ve been a homemaker since 1994 and all of a sudden I no longer know what I’m doing.
When we started adding kids to our tribe in 1997, I learned slowly how to fulfill our family’s food needs. I learned how to save money while our family grew. I learned how to feed my family healthy foods. Then, I learned how to feed teenage boys. All the while, I learned how to feed guests.
I learned and I grew and I had a system. I HAD A SYSTEM.
And then everything changed.
My old system doesn’t work anymore. It hasn’t for quite some time and I’ve been adapting. My Great Big Costco Experiment proves that I am over here HOLDING ONTO MY HOTDOG while trying to figure out how to grocery shop for and feed such a large family now.
I actually love this. Not sure how to feed this tribe anymore? The old ways don’t work? Need to develop a new system to make this happen efficiently?
Bring it on.
But also, what happened to all that fruit I bought yesterday? I bought this and this at Costco one Thursday:
Then just a few days later I had to order this from Walmart:
Then a few days later I needed this:
I love that we have such a large family and that we eat so much good food. I just can’t figure out how to keep up.
Is there such a thing? Can I keep up?
Or is this my new norm?
Moms with lots of kids, tell me: Am I going to need to go to the store every few days from now on? After all, the little kids are just going to turn into big kids, and then I’ll look back on my groceries of 2022 and laugh at myself.
I Have Got to Organize THIS!!
I’m not sure I have any answers yet, but I am working now to figure out a new system that works. For grocery shopping, for keeping up with so many mouths and appetites, for dealing with pickiness, and for organizing it all in my house.
So that’s what I’ve been working on lately!
One of my biggest issues (besides keeping up with grocery purchases) is figuring out how to organize all of our food efficiently. Here’s what I’m working with:
- We have a lovely closet-like pantry and a refrigerator/freezer in our kitchen.
- Out in a storage room, we have additional shelves for non-perishables. We also have a second fridge/freezer out there plus two deep freezers.
It’s ugly out there, but it’s storage space so that’s what matters.
I’m very blessed to have so much outside room for storage. The problems have been that:
- We have so many little ones (3, 2, 1, and 9months) that I have very little time to organize all of the food in storage. Whenever I get home from grocery shopping we all just stuff food into whatever freezers, fridges, and pantry spaces we can find room. There is no system and has not been organized.
- Every time I need something from our storage room (at least a dozen times every day), I have to make my way from the kitchen, through the living room, through Justus’ room, and into the outside storage room. It’s not such a big deal, except that alllllll of the little ones want to follow me out there, then they get mad that they can’t play out there, then I have to grab up babies to get them back into the house…
IT IS A MESS.
As in, the system is a mess and the storage room has been a mess.
These “before pictures” don’t make it look like a total mess, but trust me, we couldn’t even walk in this room.
With all of the cases and boxes of food and paper goods, the storage room barely had a path to walk through to get to anything we needed.
I’ve been praying about how to make it work better, and dumb as it is, I’ve shed some tears over it. I’ve just been frustrated because I need to make it better and I haven’t been sure how.
Finally one day, I just started digging into my kitchen pantry. My goal was to get everything organized in a way that put everything in my kitchen pantry that I used the most. Everything else was going out to the storage room shelves.
Here is my kitchen the day I pulled everything out to regroup.
Meanwhile, I realized that I have an area in my kitchen, just behind my sink, that was basically wasted space. (I didn’t take a before picture, so sorry! I was too focused on figuring out a new system. Just know that it was messy and unusable.)
It occurred to me that with some work, we could turn that space into something useful and helpful for storage and efficiency. But what exactly should we do to make that area usable?
Have I ever told you about my dear friend Pam?
I’m not sure what I would do without her. She comes over for a couple of hours every weekday morning – to help with the kids, to help me with appointments, to help me with housework – whatever I need, she’s there.
Pam helped me brainstorm, then she worked with me to reorganize that unusable kitchen area. Sooooooo thankful!!! Keith “helped” her unscrew a little table that was attached to the wall taking up and wasting space. She yanked stuff off the wall. The baby girls and I scrubbed the walls and floor. Then Pam helped me move a shelf from the storage room into that area in the kitchen.
During nap time, I took trip after trip from storage room to kitchen, filling the shelves, then redoing the pantry.
Here’s the new shelf we moved into the kitchen:
And here’s the reorganized pantry:
Having the additional shelf in the kitchen changes everything! It looks so much nicer than the mess that was there before, plus now I have all of my non-perishables right in my kitchen. I still have to make the trek out to our storage room for food in our extra fridge and freezers, but having everything else right where I need it is SO HELPFUL!!
And speaking of the storage room:
We can walk through it and all that’s stored in there now is all of our paper goods, woot!
There is still more organizing that can be done in our house, but having our kitchen and food more organized sure is a huge blessing!
Jamie says
Oh it looks so nice and organized! That feels really good!
I’ve been trying to redo some of our systems lately too and I’m kind of at a loss. I don’t know anyone with as many kids (and lots of littles) to brainstorm the, “how can we keep the house a little tidier, how can I carve out time to grade schoolwork, etc.”
Those adorable tornadoes really change the flow of efficiency ?
Mandy says
It looks like this will be so much more useable for you! What a great feeling. I love organizing:)
I might suggest looking into building/buying a shelf that you could put above the counter where the paper towels currently are. If you only put paper products up there, the shelf wouldn’t have to be that big but storing paper towels, toilet paper, etc would free up your counter! Another option would be to hang something from the ceiling (I’m thinking of some that I’ve seen in garages) that would utilize your space up high
Amanda says
Maybe someday you can get some help with the littles and work on it some more. I have my pantry room set up kind of like a grocery store. Canned goods in one area sorted by type, bulk type items in jars on one big shelf level, oils and condiments on another. Home canned goods have a shelf level, and totes full of pasta, flour, rice, oats and beans have an area. My freezers are sorted so I know which types of meat/veg/etc are in each. It’s kind of a crowded mess right now but it’s organized chaos and I can quickly get what I need for the most part.
You might also need to think of it as shopping from a store. Early in the day write a list of what you will need from your “store” that day and bring a bag to gather it all. Make sure to plan ahead for any items that need to be thawed the day before. I’m a mom of six but the most I have ever had at home at once is five but I still understand how hard it is to keep up! I still struggle with only two little ones left at home.
Julie says
Great job! It’s the point of insanity (and intervening friends) that helps us figure out how to change things for the better–at least for me. Organization is hard for me. That was a huge undertaking, and it looks like it turned out well. Thanks for sharing a bit of reality.
Michelle says
You are Amazing!!??
Thank you for all the good (and giggles) you are doing in your home and put out in the world! Give yourself a giant hug from us ?
Michelle says
Well darn. Those question marks were actually hearts and smile emojis haha. :)
Donna says
It looks good, I agree with Mandy getting things up and having some counter space so when things are going in and out of the freezer is very helpful.
K says
Thank you for keeping it real! I’ve slowly been working on our office & laundry room/pantry after neglecting it for two years. I didn’t have the energy to work on it after working all week. It wasn’t a priority of mine. Now it is. Keep up the good work with raising your family and taking care of your bonus children.