Help me Organise my new kitchen (chaotic hoarder alert)

[fruitstick]

We are having a new kitchen. I'm so excited.

We've lived with our badly designed for for 8 years now. The previous owners just put an old kitchen into a new space so it was just a collection of random cupboards with no real room to put anything.

I'm not very organised and a bit of a hoarder. I also suffer with anxiety so get easily overwhelmed. It's not helped that everything is always put back in different places so I ca never find anything.

My kitchen at the moment is full of random mismatched stuff with everything in the wrong place I've got loads of half filled jars four packets of things because I'd forgotten I already had some and about 78 different spices that we never use.

I'd really like to start again I can't afford to throw everything out but I'm struggling to know what to keep what's wasteful to throw away and how to organise all of my cupboards and drawers.

And also how to keep them organised going forward we going to have a big American fridge freezer and a pull-out 40 cm larder cupboard and another 40 cm tall cupboard on the other side. We've also got three big wall cupboards and 3 wide but shallow base units along one wall.

What do I actually need, how can I keep it organised and know where to put everything.

Give me your most ruthless kitchen organising/management tips.

I look at Pinterest but feel like that's a pipe dream with their beautifully organised shelving.

Help me make a start. B

I put all my spices and oils in clear plastic trays. They are in my pull out larder. Can see them without having to rummage around.
Cereal boxes in larder at height all dc can reach.

That's a good idea. I may also have to limit the number of cereals we are allowed in the house at any one time!

Our kitchen is tiny and we only have 3 boxes of cereals at any one time.

If your herbs and spices were easy to find, would you use them more?

We also had a low down drawer when the DC were younger for plastic cups and plates so that they could get them easily.

Some brands of spices & herbs only display the name on the front of the bottle, others helpfully have it on the top ..... so you can see at a glance what you've got! Write on the top of the unlabelled ones, so easy to see .... then arrange alphabetically. That way you're more likely to use them regularly.
Put them in a tray on one of the larder unit shelves.

Put everyday things at good levels .... so if kids are making their own breakfast, cereal at their heights etc.

Arrange things logically according to how you use them. I've got all my cake baking stuff on lowest pull-out larder shelf (least used shelf, so don't mind the bending) and on a high shelve in a wall cupboard. Need steps to get to it, and I'm 5-7, but no problem as I use it infrequently,

Conversely the spices, herbs, oils etc are in the chest-height pull out shelf.

Use storage out of the kitchen if that makes more sense ..... I've got my mixer still in it's box, in the understairs cupboard. I've got a few "healthy" cookbooks in the kitchen ..... my baking / Christmas / Delia cookbooks are all in my lounge bookcase. Store stuff where makes sense for you.

The first thing I would do though OP is go through your food. Anything out of date should go in the bin. Anything unopened that you have double of coukd go to the food bank, especially if you’re not likely to use it before it’s best before date.

Once you’ve done that it should make a very visible difference, especially if you have 4 of some things

I've thrown out a big bag for life of stuff which was out of date or half opened but we'll never use. It feels much better

That's a great start fruitstick

Have a designated snack cupboard/drawer. Stops them all rummaging around in other cupboards. If it's not in that one place, we don't have it.
( Apart from my secret choc stash at the back of the veg draw in the fridge!)

We hide things in the salad drawer to Curly, it’s the only place DH would never look if he was after food

fruit that’s a brilliant start. I think I may tackle my carrier bag mountain in a min. Have you got planned what you’re doing next?

It's going to be a few weeks before I can put it back in all the cupboards. But I'm trying to plan now so I don't panic and shove it all in.

Have you done a bit of editing of the things you have in the kitchen fruit? Last time we had a new kitchen we sent loads of stuff to the charity shop. They’re usually happy to have it because students buy it and it means that you don’t have as much stuff to store whilst you are living out of boxes and you don’t have as much stuff to put back either

I need to do that. I think I need to go and sort through one box at a time. We don't actually have that much to be honest. Although I may treat myself to some new Tupperware!

Yeah, definitely do one box at a time if you have anxiety

If you have difficulty with making decisions like this I find it helps to have rules that you can't argue yourself out of. Rules that are just obviously true. Like 'throw it out if past its use by date' is just a rule you can really easily follow because even if your brain tries to argue back, it is a rule that ultimately makes sense.

A similar rule is that you might need two of something but you definitely don't need three.

There are lots of products to help you easily see what you have, like 'steps' for tinned goods so you can see what's at the back. Bit of an investment but not much compared to a whole new kitchen, and will help reduce food duplication and waste.

Store seasonal items like Christmas pattern crockery in the garage.

Ooh, I'm not allowed in the garage! That is DH territory only (don't ask). However I do have really high cupboards in the kitchen which I can't reach so it can all go up there.

(also, I don't actually have any seasonal crockery. This needs to change [santa])

I decant all packets into Tupperware, so the most I have in packets is the “next” new one, so I know at a glance exactly what I have.when I say all packets, I mean ALL packets, from bicarbonate of soda to cereal. I’m probably a bit anal about it🙄, although it does mean I don’t have half opened packets which spill in the cupboard and go out of date