Day 27: The Kitchen
Posted: October 26th, 2010 | Author: Dariane | Filed under: Daily Updates | 33 Comments »At the end of each day, I post a recap of what happened and what progress I made. I try to be as detailed as possible when tracking the project. Here’s what happened today…
Today’s Stats:
Number of hours spent: 7
Supplies purchased: None
Amount spent: $0
Number of (13-gallon kitchen) bags trashed: 2
Number of giveaway boxes: 0
Number of (33-gallon) giveaway bags: 0
Butt-Kick Tier 1: Clear out a kitchen drawer
Butt-Kick Tier 2: Clear out a 1/4 of the Kitchen
Progress:
Alas, I’m finally tackling the kitchen. I expected the kitchen to be easy to clean because I figured that most of the stuff was old food to be thrown away or kitchen utensils/appliances that we don’t use.
Once I got started, I found that although there was old food and old kitchen supplies, most of the stuff in the kitchen doesn’t belong in the kitchen to begin with. For example in a single small area I sorted through I found:
- A few picture frames
- Earrings
- Stockings, pantyhose and socks
- An unopened bag of lentils
- Magnets
- Bills and bank statements
- JUNK MAIL (ughhhhh)
- Business cards
- Onion, Apples, Garlic, Ginger
- Mailing labels
- Toys (Rubber balls, Tyco train)
- A Raiders highlights DVD (We’re not even football fans, let alone Raiders fans)
- A 12-CD Case holder, with a picture of Celine Dion on the front
- And of course… coins and dead batteries
I sit in a spot ready to clear through, then realize that I have no idea what to do with all this stuff. Unlike the garage or guest room, I don’t know how recent the miscellaneous items in the kitchen have been used. I don’t know whether the items are important to my family or not.
If the house were completely clean and you gave me the list of items above, I could easily tell you where each item should belong. But right now with the house as it is, when I’m in the moment of sorting I can’t figure out where anything should go. Most of it doesn’t belong in the kitchen, but there’s no place anywhere else to put it.
The overwhelming amount of miscellaneous stuff in the kitchen is just part of the problem. On top of that, the organizational system in place is inadequate. I close my eyes and envision the entire kitchen completely empty. Then I start slowly filling the kitchen in my mind with the things I think are essentials: the fridge, the microwave, toaster oven, crock pot, rice cooker and so on. Then I think of the utensils, pots and pans, dishes, cups, serving bowls and so on. Then the food. Even when I envision the basic things that we would need to have in the kitchen, or the things that would be normal or functional for us, there is still not enough storage.
Not enough cabinets or drawers. We don’t have a pantry to store food. The kitchen is the appropriate size for maybe a 2-bedroom apartment for urbanites who don’t cook often, not for a family of four who cook and bake a lot.
Now what? Even if I get rid of all the things we don’t need in the kitchen, there won’t be room to fit the things we do need. Given how the kitchen is the area used most often and given how my family has been with stuff, keeping stuff in a spot temporarily while we get stuff fixed (like maybe installing a pantry) simply can’t happen. There isn’t such a thing as putting something somewhere temporarily. Not with them, not yet.
I feel stuck. Even after I’ve broken down the project into smaller more manageable pieces, it still feels unmanageable.
Unnecessary stuff still manages to creep into areas they don’t belong. The clutter in the house is still too overwhelming and horribly disorganized. I think once we scale the stuff down into something manageable and once we have organizational systems in place, things will get easier to clean, organize, and maintain. Right now we’re just dealing with the massive purge.
One thing at a time I guess.
Tier 1 (drawer) accomplished. Tier 2, not. And still no pictures.
Dariane,
What about putting all the little misc stuff in a box and then waiting 2-4 weeks. If the items are not looked for or needed in that time period, it’s probably safe to just get rid of them. Obviously not the bills and food, but all the trinkets kitchens seem to accumulate.
Small steps, small steps! Hang in there!
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Is there room in the kitchen for a baker’s rack or something? Those are great for storing things – you can have the microwave, toaster, crock pot, and other appliances there, as well as baking pans and bowls and stuff. My fiancee’s mother had this in her small kitchen, and it worked well.
There is also the option of a pegboard on the wall, where you can hang up pans and pots and stuff, if there is room.
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How does the baking and cooking happen now? I am a bit confused, if those activities can be carried out now, even if everything can’t be stored traditionally when you do the room, won’t it still be an improvement?
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I don’t have a lot of storage space in my kitchen. I seemed to have a choice between storing utensils and storing food *hah* when we first moved in. My husband put up a pegboard for my pots and pans (the hangable ones). It helped a lot. We also got a microwave cabinet for our microwave and that gave us some more space.
A tall narrow shelf unit (started life as a closet organizer) in my laundry room is my pantry.
If there is a linen closet in the house, perhaps part of it could be used for a pantry?
Just my 2 cents. I understand your quandry. What does your mom think?
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That is such good progress, even if it brought you down.
For the misc., if you’re still feeling overwhelmed, I would suggest sorting into several containers. I know this is kind of complex, so if it sounds overwhelming just don’t use it.
But: for rooms you’ve cleaned, a shoebox or laundry basket – budget time at the end of your day to actually put things away.
For rooms you haven’t cleaned yet, a box that will fit in (or near) that room, labeled with the room name. At the end of the day, stick these in the rooms they belong in – you’ll deal with them when you do that room. If they’re not full, you can pull them out before you start the next day – but if something interferes with that, it’s at least in the room where it belongs.
You might need a change jar, too, and a file folder for mail that looks like it might be important.
This violates “touch it once” but the benefit is, when you are dealing with the room this stuff actually belongs in, you can see how many of them there already are and how much space there is, instead of trying to make decisions in a vaccum.
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Yes, Ruth’s idea about the linen closet would be what I would have said, too. Do you have a coat closet or linen closet anywhere near the kitchen that can be repurposed? My mom has one with shelves on all three sides inside, right up to the ceiling, and a rack hanging on the back of the door for smaller things like spices. The floor space can be used for things like sorting recycling or storing cases of soda (for your dad, ha ha). My mom’s “pantry” closet holds a TON of stuff.
Other than that, yeah, a pot rack hanging from the middle of the ceiling? A rolling cart-type organizational unit that can be put in the center of the floor? Any sort of separate storage unit like an MDF utility-type closet, or the baker’s rack?
Also, can the space above the cabinets and refrigerator be used in any way?
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Another pots and pans idea: My best friend has a tiny kitchen and her husband installed a pot rack in front of her kitchen window. It holds her big pots very nicely. It is attached to the wood trim around the window frame.
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Everyone above has great suggestions. I would also like to add if the kitchen is that much of a catch all then maybe leave it for the last room of the purge. That way if you find things and you know where they would go you can put them away.
You’re doing a great job, so try not to get too discouraged. We’re rooting for you here!
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I know what you mean about not adding more storage space even though you may need some.
My mom’s favorite new items to buy are oranizational tools / shelves / systems. She’s got about 4 dozen desk organizers in the bedroom, none near the desk because laundry and junk mail is piled on top of it. She had our utility room converted into a giant coat closet and now it holds more crap than ever.
Purge first, storage later. If they really really NEED that stuff, they can buy it back with money you make off of giveaway stuff. In your case, it’s definitely more beneficial to purge first and ask questions later.
Also, I’m surprised you haven’t unearthed a baker’s rack somewhere in the house yet!
Good luck! It sounds like you’re making headway, and headway > stagnation.
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Yay for progress, even if it is minimal. I lived in kitchens with minimal to no storage for many, many years. With my mother we had a metal baker’s rack that worked well, with a half circle pot rack over it for hanging pots up.
When I lived with roommates, we used one of my tall, narrow, deep bookcases as a pantry, and just hung a piece of cloth over the front. You can pretty easily get a freestanding cabinet with doors as well if you can find the floorspace. In the meantime. Maybe a family meeting for things in question? (hold up item, has anyone used this in the last 3 years, yes? then do you think you will use it again? no? then it’s going away..)
Good luck!
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I have a really small kitchen, too, and I have no storage in the original kitchen. We added a pot rack to store the pots and pans, but our ceilings are so low we had to go with one that mounts on the wall. It takes up relatively little space, and it’s wall space instead of floor, counter or cupboard space, so it helps tremendously! We’ve had it up 7 or 8 years or so now, and I’m so glad we have it. Before we did, all pots and pans had to stay in the oven, and we never had any place for them, if we wanted to do any baking. We also added a storage cabinet that predates MDF (raw particle board) that I painted to match the kitchen to store mixing bowls and canisters as well as a baking rack to store the microwave oven and microwaveable dishes. We still have problems with finding room for everything, though, because it’s still not the most usable space. I’d love to have a real pantry some day, but I’m not sure how we’d manage it without putting it in the garage. LOL
Please know I’m not telling you what to do. Just what worked for me, and I fully know that what works for one person might not for the other.
I keep a heavy duty gallon jug that used to hold tea (Arizona Ice Tea?) to keep spent batteries in. That way, I don’t feel guilty about throwing them away, and they won’t leak acid on anything or anyone and hurt them. I keep the jug in the garage, so it’s easily accessible, if it’s needed.
I also keep a box to put shredables in. (Junk mail, old bills, stuff that needs to be shredded, but I don’t have time to sit and work on shredding right then). Anything that goes in the box is torn in half first, so I can see at a glance, if something’s fallen in the box that shouldn’t be in there, because I don’t really want to accidentally send something off to be shredded that I need. Once the box is full, the contents are bagged up into a grocery bag, and set aside to be taken to a commercial shredding place. A few times a year, we can take the things in to be shredded for free, so it’s handy to not waste my time on it.
And when I come across something I’m not sure what to do with (like the socks and stockings), but it’s in the wrong room, I put it in the room it goes in. I’m usually ready to make a decision about whether or not the socks will be used by the time I get to that room. I only do this with things that I really have no idea how to handle, and it seems to be working. More often than not, by the time I see the socks (or whatever the item is) again, when I’ve gone to work in the room I’ve put them in, I’m ready to throw them or give them away.
I understand how hard it can be to think through things. Hang in there!
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I wouldn’t recommend this for usual cases, but since yours is a special case, I might do this – you may need to temporarily clutter up a cleared area just to get the kitchen in a state where you can structure organization.
I would just literally shovel as much as you can out of there and into another space, with no “sifting” yet. I’m sure that sounds really depressing since you worked so hard to unclutter the other areas, but as long as it’s part of a process and not just moving permanent clutter around, it might work better, so you can deal with organizing in the kitchen and putting back the stuff that does actually belong there.
In terms of ideas for making it “organizable” for storage, I think the prior commenters have given great ideas. I think having a tiny kitchen is a common problem, so I am sure lots of people know what to do.
Like someone else said I’m curious though – if the kitchen is that full of other stuff, how DOES the baking/cooking occur in there? Also, things like the Raiders DVD… if no one is a football fan, how does that stuff get there? Does a family member see “a deal” at the store and figure they can give it as a gift to “someone sometime”? That’s the only thing that would make sense to me…
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When dealing with a tiny kitchen, sometimes you’l need to downsize the expectations of what is a ” need ” and what is a “nice to have” kitchen item. For example, one small set of pots and pans that can nest inside each other would mean you just need room for the largest pot and maybe a small rack to hold the lids next to it. I would say put some of the miscellaneous stuff in the give away pile and let family members choose what us needed later. Most of that stuff is probably duplicated elsewhere in the house.
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Dariane, your youthful enthusiasm and energy for this huge project is delightful.
One thing I am just dying to know: whatever happened to the POD in the driveway? (It was for donations, right?) Is it finally gone? Did Salvation Army pick up everything yet? Please, Dariane, share the POD story with us!
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It’s been awhile since you posted. You doing okay?
Thinking about you.
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Dariane, I’ve read your blog over the past few days and hope you are doing well. You have accomplished an incredible amount of work in a relatively short time and you should be very proud of yourself! Look forward to reading more from you soon.
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I just wanted to know that I found your blog recently and your perseverance is inspiring! I see it’s been an unusually long time since your last post, I hope everything is okay!
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Hey Dariane!
No updates for a while…everything okay?
I have been checking back regularly and am anxiously awaiting an update!!
Hope you are doing alright!
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hey dariane, it’s been a long time since you updated! I thought you were going to show your family how it’s done and that the house wasn’t an impossible task to get done?
It’s just stuff. If you’ve really hit a stumbling block, get a little angry and take it out on the junk! Throw stuff away, make some progress. Even if it’s small, you’re moving forward and no longer sliding back. Take small steps forward and all of the sudden you’ll be farther than you thought possible!
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Hey Dariane, I’ve been reading your blog for a while now, and I’m so amazed at what you’re doing and what a freakin’ awesome job you’re doing. I’m just checking to see if you’re okay, you haven’t updated in a while. Did you stop cleaning? I can understand if you did, it looks like not only a physically, but mentally and emotionally draining task to do. I hope your sister is still enjoying her nice new room.
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Hi, Dariane! It’s been a month since we heard from you. I hope that you’re doing well.
Cleaning up after hoarders can be exhausting physically, mentally, and emotionally. We understand if you needed a break for a while.
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Dariane
you have made me sad.
that is all
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Thought you might be interested in these two links:
http://inheritingthehoard.wordpress.com/
and
http://inheritingthehoard.wordpress.com/
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Sorry, that should have been:
http://milbetweenus.blogspot.com/
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I just found your blog and have reading from the beginning.
I am so looking forward to an update on your progress.
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I just wanna give you an encouraging word since you’ve been gone so long.
Encouraging
Yea, that’s all I got. I miss your writing.
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I had a curveball thrown at me just after Christmas when I learned that I needed to clean up my house so two people I love could move in. And I had less than a month to do it in.
I was lucky that I had lots of assistance: family members and friends came to help me out. When they weren’t there, I kept plugging away at the next thing on the list.
The result: the basement is now essentially an apartment for my guests. My kitchen and living room are almost completely cleared. My garage is packed with boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff.
My bedroom and craftroom are not cleared. My bedroom is my current project, and I am slowly whittling away at it. It’s tough because I used up all that energy in a burst right up front, so I really don’t want to do a damn thing.
I can’t help but wonder if you’re experiencing something similar. You did so much work and clearing out–yes, you had some help, but you were mostly on your own. It’s okay if you’re discouraged. It’s okay if you don’t want to do anything any more.
I would encourage you to keep whittling at it. The little things really do add up, I promise.
Take care.
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hi Dariane
i recently found & read your blog and i’ve found what you’ve written to be entertaining & inspiring. i’m not anyone significant as far as you’re concerned, but wanted to add mine to the other voices of encouragement & concern at not hearing from you for such a long time. having said that, i imagine that writing a blog is not the most important thing in your life(!) so i hope that you’re doing well and that the important things are going well for you; from the teeny bit of you i’ve seen from your blog, i know you’ll be giving it your all.
with love & best wishes x
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Hi,
I see from your twitter page that you’re on hiatus and can understand that. I just wanted to say that I’m also a child who has grown up in a hoarders home and unfortunately have developed the same habits myself. So now, even though I’m only in my twenties, I have a house full of clutter. My plan was to start the (long) process of tackling both mine and my parent’s house this week and did an online search for tips, which is how I found this blog. I’ve read through all your posts tonight and found it both inspiring and informative. So I want to say thank you. And I hope you’re doing OK
Thanks!
Nicky
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Aha. I was wondering why your RSS feed had been stagnant for so long. Thanks, Nicky, for the heads-up on Twitter. I’ll go get the latest right now.
I’m cheering for you and looking for more updates!
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Hi Dariane!
I found your blog from another hoarding cleanup blog, and just finished reading through your archives. Thank you so much for sharing your experience with the world. It’s a real privilege to be able to peek over your shoulder like this.
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Hope everything’s okay! I read through your blog in a day and I just wanted to let you know that I loved it! I’m not a hoarder and neither is my family but I have OCD and I do seem to accumulate clutter that I have a hard time getting rid of, due to sentimentality and fear of needing it later. I’m not in denial, I know I’m not a hoarder because I can see my floors, counters, etc. I throw stuff out. It just seems like it could get worse if I’m not careful. That’s why I’ve loved your rules! I’m currently in the process of moving and applying your rules has been invaluable! I just wanted you to know. Best of luck!
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[...] this blog for the first time, you’ll see that the last time I posted anything was, well, 10 months ago… just 3 months after I began the project. Before I explain what happened in the past 10 [...]