Another snow day, another space organized

This time there's no school because of the ice storm, it's starting to seem like every Wednesday there's no school.  While, I don't mind sleeping in, I've always considered snow days to be like free days, stay in your jammies and snuggle under a blanket watching movies all day.  But no more!  (OK, not completely, we're still in our jammies, I've got a blanket on and there's a movie on two of the three TVs in our house...)

But, I'm proud to say, I have accomplished organizing another space today!  Here is what I started with:

This is the corner of the kitchen where everything ends up.  Now, many of the items have a home, but not everyone puts them where they belong.  There are also several of things that end up here because they don't belong anywhere.  This is where other family members put things when they are "cleaning up" and it drives me crazy!

I took everything off the counter and cleaned it.  I got rid of whatever I could (trash, give-a-way and put-a-way) and thought about how I'd rather the space be used.  I know no matter what I do, this will continue to be a catch all space, so I need to be able to better contain the (for lack of a better term) crap!

I must admit, I've been thinking about and planning cleaning this space for a few days, since Friday actually, as that is my clean the kitchen day on my "chore chart."  After spending some time in local stores and online, I still wasn't finding the "perfect containers."  Turns out, I had a few things in my basement that will serve as a good start before I spend any money on the wrong kind of container/storage/basket or whatever.  This will give me a chance to see what works and what doesn't.  Here is what I found:

An older style plate/serving stand from Pampered Chef and some wire baskets from Avon.  I stuck plastic sandwich containers in the bottom of two to keep little things from falling out.  If this works, I'll make up some cloth basket liners, which will make it look so much nicer.

After a much longer time period than I wanted to spend on this area (that whole, kids home thing... why do they keep wanting me to feed them!?!?!), here is the result:

I ended up using a Longaberger basket I had to hold the pencils, pens, scrap paper that was previously in one of those silver bins on the fridge (that is what is black on the right side).  Since there were always too many, it made the bin too heavy, therefor within O-man's reach.  My old canisters that I had in a give-a-way bin but never managed to actually give-a-way now hold the bread flour (bread machine has recently re-surfaced and being used almost daily), Olvaltine and miscellaneous stuff.  One of the baskets has chargers that are always homeless, another one has the extra tissue packets, inhaler and a few other things that always end up stashed in this corner and the front most basket is full of "crap" that I don't know what to do with but can't get rid of.

Here is a little tip ya'll might find helpful when organizing while the bread machine is baking away... don't forget you're baking bread and unplug it... the doughy mess is now a funky looking blobby loaf that hopefully cooked all the way through in the regular oven...

Peace be with you,

PS - a month of eating "Lessmeatarian" style and reduced processed foods and I'm down a whole 5 pounds, two inches in the waist and an inch off the the arms and legs!