Nearly There!

I did the second to last room in the big deluttering challenge last weekend, the kitchen. This is how it looked before.

This room wasn't really too cluttered but since we moved in we've not really been using some of the space in the best way. For example the space on top of the microwave had become a bit of a mess as it was often where we just put larger food items due to not having enough cupboard space.

So I cleared it off, threw away the crisps and crackers as they were out of date, and put my porridge oats up there in their place. This jar stays down from the cabinet top as I use it every day (the others have flour etc in which I don't use daily) and I don't want to have to climb the cabinets every morning to make breakfast! I got a box out for stuff to go to the charity/car boot pile but actually everything ended up in the bin liner for the tip, so Minty claimed the box as her fort for the day.

It was already looking better, but still there was too much out on the counters in here for my liking meaning cooking can get a bit frustrating due to lack of counter space. This is our largest cupboard, and it is just full of random stuff.

 The pots and pans were all in this smaller cupboard next to the oven

So I dragged it all out and swapped them around. Now the 'random kitchen stuff' cupboard is the smaller one, and the cookware, tupperware and tea towels are in the larger one. Much more sensible. The carrier bags are all in the hallway now, as I figure if they are near the front door they are more likely to get reused than if they're hidden under the sink.

The next to do was food, we had a bigger kitchen in our last house but now only have one cupboard for food so we need to get better at buying less and only what we will eat straight away. I got all the food out of here and sorted through it.

After getting rid of all the out of date things and reorganising the cupboard I was able to get more things into the food cupboard, like oils and spices, so there is less on the counter and I could move the toaster round and also fit a chopping board in front of it.

 This is the out of date stuff. We have out of date tinned goods, how embarrassing!

We have gained a usable counter space!

It's amazing what a couple of hours and a bin liner can free up, we now have more cupboard space and another work surface. 

I will get a few more small jars when I'm next at The Range as I want to move some more of the dried stuff like couscous up to the top of the cabinet out of the cupboard, and there is room for another row of smaller jars behind the big ones. Other than that now it's nice and clear I'd like to replace some stuff in there like the bread bin and canisters, and bring in some more colour and interest as it looks pretty boring.

Also observant people might notice that the view out of the window looks different, the garden is being redone so the landlords part of it now looks like this.

I will ask if I can take some snaps when it's done but it is certainly more open and they now have a nice spiral staircase in up to their back door instead of the old wooden stairs they had before. We are hoping this will mean more sun into our little part of the garden in the summer and it certainly feels a lot more spacious out there. Our part looks like a dump though as we had to move all our pots into the centre to let them do the work so I need to spend a few hours out there! Another thing for the to do list...

If we owned our flat

Time for the monthly daydream about what we'd change if we were to buy our flat tomorrow.

This one is pretty practical actually, I'd like to have an extractor hood for the hob/oven. There isn't one, but there's a gap in the cabinets for it.

Being in a basement flat we need all the ventilation we can get so I'd definitely look into getting one. We do get condensation in the kitchen and I find myself opening the door to let it out, but now the weather is getting cold that's not so appealing! We also get some mould in the bedroom which the landlord is looking into so anything to reduce moisture would be good...

What would you do to your rented place if you could?

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If we owned our flat

Time for this months look at what we would do if this place was ours, Wednesday will be an update on the start of the decluttering, so if you're joining in stop by and let us know how you're getting on.

If this was our flat I'd have more kitchen storage, seriously we only have one upper cabinet! The boiler is in one so only the one on the right can be actually used.

3 of the 4 walls in the kitchen have no upper storage on them, and we only have 4 usable cabinets and one drawer in the kitchen. It's such a random design, I'd have upper cabinets on one wall (Like continuing round in an L shape above the 'breakfast bar' and joining up to the current one on the right) and some open shelves on another, probably open shelves on the wall with the window so not to block any light.

It would really help get stuff off the counter tops and make the kitchen a bit more functional, the only reason I could see as to why it isn't already there would be as it's a small kitchen too many overhead cabinets might make it feel a little closed in, which is why I would do open shelving on one side.

Before the big declutter

I'll post our list for the big declutter on Wednesday, so if you're playing along at home get ready to get rid! See last weeks post here on the method.

I thought I'd share some before photos today because A.the whole flat is clean after a bank holiday housework blitz and B. I'm hoping it will look a bit different in a few weeks!

The Kitchen - Problem areas:
Top of the microwave
Countertops
Food cupboard

The thing on top of the hob is the oven shelves soaking in the overnight oven cleaner

The Living Room - Problem Areas:
Box under coffee table
Corners by the bookshelves

The dining room/hallway (not really sure what to call his room now it's no longer the 'office') - Problem Areas:
Shelves under the turtle tank

The Bathroom - Problem Areas:
Cosmetics
Built in cupboard

The Hallway - Problem Areas
Bookshelves
Cupboard
Music Equipment
Shoes
Computer Equipment
Chairs (we have 4 dining chairs and an armchair in here and never sit on any of them!)

This box is also still here, Tom needs to sort it out or it will just be labelled 'Sell' and become the start of the car boot pile...

The Bedroom - Problem Areas:
Under the bed
Ottomans

The bag on the bed is full of clothes that were on ebay and ended yesterday and I'm either sending off or if they didn't sell getting rid of elsewhere

So that's our flat as of yesterday, pretty clean and tidy but cluttered in some areas. I can't wait to get rid of some things and make some room!

Kitchen Reorganising

Saturday while my table decorations for our engagement party were drying I decided to reorganise the undersink cupboard

We had a lot of stuff in the undersink cupboard and the one next to it on the left that didn't necessarily need to be in the kitchen. It was either stuff that we rarely use or stuff that isn't kitchen related but has ended up in here. In the undersink cupboard we had a lot of pet stuff like flea treatments, worming tablets etc in a plastic box. I took all this out and moved some stuff from the cupboard on the left into that box

It was all stuff we do use so want to keep but don't use that often, as they are all fragile or breakable I didn't want to put them into this box

The box on the left is full of kitchen items we don't use often like place mats (umm we don't even have a table?), straws, food processor attachments, cake decorating stuff. The box on the right is full of pet stuff. They're both now back on top of the wardrobe in the hallway, where they have been sat empty for a while since we got them, put them up there and forgot about them!

The cupboards look a bit organised and you can actually see what's in them!

The box on the top has all our tupperware and food storage and the one underneath is the box pictured above, I also chucked the tea towels in there. The rest is pretty self explanatory, vases, carrier bags, cat food etc

And look at all the counter space that is no longer filled up with bits and bobs and clutter as we can get everything we need to into the cupboards!

The kitchen is one room I always struggle to keep clutter free as we like to cook, and me being vegetarian and Tom not it means we need 2 pans to make meals that usually only need one and that makes for a lot of kitchen stuff, so keeping kitchen stuff in the hallway might seem odd but it's all hidden away and it saves us a bit of space. 

The storage boxes came with our ottomans in the bedroom (£49.99 for one large and 2 small from The Range) and we have 4 of them, 3 on top of the wardrobe and one under the coffee table in the living room. I must say I didn't know what I'd do with them when we got them but they've been pretty handy! I sorted the one in the living room out as well as it's a 'dumping ground' for living room stuff like remote controls but post, takeaway menus, nail varnishes and other random items often make their way in there and it gets full up so once every few months I go through and put everything away where it actually is meant to go (often the bin) and make room for more junk. At least it keeps the living room tidy!

Progress

We've been living in our flat 6 months now, so I thought it's a good time to look back and see what progress we've made (and what we still have left to do...which is plenty!)

Let's start with the kitchen, probably the room that's least changed

We've decluttered and added in some storage jars and storage solutions, also we've added in some finishing touches like the 'keep calm' sign. Still left to do in here are new mugs (thinking those DIY sharpie decorated ones that are all over Pinterest), new bread bin and mug tree, new canisters for tea coffee and sugar (thinking silver metallic) new recycling bin, maybe a rug or at least a doormat, new fruit bowl and possibly a window treatment. Also we still need to declutter some problem area like the top of the microwave.

You can see larger photos and more detail on the changes in the kitchen here, here and here.

Onto the living room

We got the new bookshelves and I changed the basket under the table for a larger one with a lid (It came with the ottomans from the bedroom), we also added in my DIY runner. Other than that the changes have been minor rearrangements of frames and CDs etc, I want to eventually get an ottoman or trunk to use as a coffee table, change the TV unit, add some art/photo frames on the fireplace (where we have been told we can put picture hooks, yay!), add more pillows to the sofa, maybe make a faux roman blind for the window (to go over the existing boring one) and generally add in a bit of colour as the room is a bit bland! Possibly thinking yellow to go with the Fender...

You can see more on the living room here and more on the DIY runner here.

The into the Office

We have some art on the tank and a mat under the cat litter tray, but the desk is now even more of a mess as we have 2 PC screens at the moment (anyone want to buy one?!). We are looking at the whole computer situation, as I have my new netbook (which came with one of those screens) so very rarely use the desktop, Tom uses it sometimes but if we had a laptop that did iTunes and Tom could play games on we could get rid the desktop, freeing up some space. This all costs money though so will be something we sort out gradually. We also want to get a new desk and new desk chair, and possibly a rug under the desk. The turtle tank will also need replacing at some point (see this post on the leak we had the other week!) but that's also something quite expensive that we will need to save up for.

You can see more on the office here and here

Then into the bathroom

This room, like the kitchen, hasn't really changed a great deal it has mostly just been decluttered and I'm trying to not buy more than one bottle of something at a time (you know when your shampoo is on offer so you buy 5 bottles...yeah I'm trying not to do that). I want to get some more art or something in here as it's a bit bland, I'm thinking on the back of the toilet as I like the lilies there in this post. Also I think we need a new bath mat as our has goe a bit off white, new towels probably soonish as well as I bought really cheap ones and they're starting to go a bit off colour (they also looked great in our last bathroom but I'd prefer black or white ones here).

You can read more on the bathroom here and here

The bedroom, it was gross before!

We've gotten rid of the 2 armchairs that were in there, reorganised my shoes, moved the trunk in from the hallway, got new wardrobes, got ottomans for storage on top of the wardrobes, rationalised the stuff under the bed and moved a lot of it out to the wardrobe in the hallway, brought the canvas in from the office, got new paperwork storage and generally tidied up! To be honest it still has a long way to go, I want to get a new bed, get bedside tables, rearrange the furniture so the chest of drawers isn't in front of the window (makes it hard to open the window), add some art or photos to the chimney breast (again this is where we've been told we can put picture hooks) get new bedding and a mirror, get some bedside lamps and bring a bit of a cohesive colour scheme in (so far we have about 10 different wood tones and 5 different textiles in here and it looks a bit crazy). It all seems to hinge on the new bed I so once we have that we can do the rest.

You can see more on the bedroom here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Then onto the entrance hall way, probably the most transformed room so far!

I reorganised in here a few times before getting our lovely big wardrobe to put all our junk in, it's a room that isn't really used by us except to walk through when we come in and out of the flat and for storage, so really I want to give this space a use other than drying clothes. As we don't spend any time in here more often than not it's full of clothes airers with washing drying on them, so you come in the door and it looks like this

Not exactly a warm welcome. So our aim in here is to maximise space so we could actually spend time in here, I'm thinking a reading nook as all the bookshelves are in here.

You can see more on the entrance hall and how we got to this point here, here and here

Onto the outside space, really we have just planted some things and are waiting to see how they do but it looks better already in the back garden

We're just waiting for seeds to grow and plants to fill in, then we might get a few more pots and some pretty garden things but we will build it up over time. There's not been any change in the front of the flat, not a lot we can change really!

You can see more on the garden here, and here.

There's the last 6 months of projects and changes, it's nice to look back and what you've achieved sometimes and see how much progress you've made even though there is plenty left to do!