The more time I spend in my home, the more organized it gets. I’m continually revisiting spaces that I’ve already worked on to make them even easier to use.
Take my kitchen, for example. I’ve written about numerous kitchen projects in recent years. In Keeping A Lid on Your Pots and Pans and But I Paid So Much For It, I wrote about getting rid of pots I wasn’t using, rearranging my lower cabinets to make my pots and pans more accessible, and hanging my two most frequently-used pans on the wall.
The catalyst for my latest change was when one of my colleagues posted a picture on Facebook of the youCopia Pan & Lid 11″ Rack. This product lets you store frying pans, pot lids, and baking pans vertically so that they can easily be taken out and put back without having to rearrange everything. I had been struggling with that very issue, so I excitedly measured my cabinets and ordered it from Amazon.
While I was waiting for it to arrive, I gave some thought to the content of my lower cabinets. Ever since we got rid of the china closet in the living room (see You Have More Room Than You Think), one of my lower kitchen cabinets has been chock full of serving dishes that we rarely use. The other cabinet is one of those deep and wide cabinets that is partially a blind corner. It was actually rather spacious because we had gotten rid of so many large items in recent years.
On the day the Pan & Lid Rack arrived, I took everything out of both cabinets, scrubbed the cabinets carefully, and then started rearranging. The rarely-used serving dishes were carefully reviewed and culled, then stacked in the blind corner. The liquor that had previously been stored there was put in a better-lit spot. In the narrower cabinet, I put the Pan & Lid Rack on the bottom shelf and the pots on the top shelf. And I added one more frying pan to my wall of pans.
The Pan & Lid Rack has been working out beautifully. The baking pans that I use several times a week in my toaster oven are so easy to slide in and out. And the large pan cover that also gets used frequently is no longer taking up horizontal space and getting in the way of the pots. The slats of the rack are adjustable, so I was easily able to match the width of my items.
My three most frequently-used pans are now hanging on the wall, providing easy access. It’s such a pleasure now to cook and clean up, because it’s so easy to reach what I need and then put things away afterward. And that, my friends, is what organizing is all about. It’s not about making things look pretty and photo-worthy. It’s about making your life easier.
