For most of December, our home was an utter mess. Food was stacked in my room with exactly enough room to sleep. Okay, sometimes. After a real break, I finally made progress.

After tearing apart the counter of the old kitchen, and building a new shelf in the corner, it was time to find the right place for all our kitchen things. I spent literal days moving items from left to right, staring at jars and boxes.

Our pantry didn’t make any sense. We were out of a lot of things I would’ve bet we still had.

But, somehow, I’d managed to order 18 bags of oats. That’s a lot of granola… Reminded that I’d been meaning to refill the granola jar, I used up some oats to make more. I’ll probably still have to donate some of the oats…

The kitchen was an elaborate game of Tetris. I just could not figure out how to arrange it all.

Between the empty jars, the pantry goods, and the actual kitchen stuff, there was a lot to fit in. And I wanted easy access to everything, so stacking things high behind my chair wasn’t an option.

And then, I had an idea. An idea that wouldn’t just fit it all into the kitchen but also look somewhat pretty. I moved the jars I’d just added to the metal shelf over to an open cupboard instead.

Pepper really doesn’t like the sound of glass. It’s probably some trauma from before we adopted him. I dropped another glass the other day, so he’s extra skittish at the moment. Before long, all the empty jars had found a space, and Pepper got some proper cuddles.

I cooked simple dinners for most of the month, so I could focus my energy on the kitchen cleanup.

Somehow, there was always a round of cleaning before I could make progress on sorting, though. I wonder how people manage to keep their kitchen clean all the time instead of chasing tail ends of todos.

Two of the hooks have kept falling, so we changed the design a bit to better distribute the forces.

I glued the wrong replacement hook to the wrong spot. Of course, I did. So, I took off the other two hooks as well, and tried again.

Better. Now, we can reach the fire blanket easily in an emergency while also having a spot for the sieves.

I’d been asking my husband for a hanging rack for our reusable tea bags. He designed and printed me one. Now, they no longer all bunch on one hook. Yay!

I put my little hanging rack back up on the wall over the sink.

Small corners were starting to look finished. And I was getting a grip on all the things that needed to live in the kitchen.

I moved the ugly outlet from the fridge to a place under the aisle. Now I won’t worry about it being right next to the stove anymore. I’d been content with this aisle’s arrangement, so I returned items to their places.

Things were taking shape, but there was still the pantry to deal with.

The green crates behind the jars almost exclusively hold refills, so I won’t need to access them often. I still made sure to place a maximum of three jars in the way, so I can easily get to them when needed.

This entire crate holds a lot of things that are almost used up. Hopefully, this will soon be less messy. Once I refill the empty jars, the crates will be even less visible.

I know the shelf isn’t perfect. I know some things aren’t pretty. But just seeing more bare wood in the kitchen already makes me so much happier. And there is so much more room!

The entire upper shelf stayed the same as before. The layout there has been working well.

We’ll need to screw in the hook for the fire blanket. It’s just too heavy. We’ll also need to design some holders for all the food processor attachments. Right now, there is chaos on the shelf. We are also somehow already low on canned potatoes again. I’ll need to make more very soon.

I’ll soon let you know what’s actually in this kitchen. For now, I’m enjoying the functional kitchen space. No more trips to the basement to get a can of tomatoes.

This little friend wanted to overwinter in my toilet paper plant. Unfortunately, not an option.
To the pretty little winged friend and all of you: so long, and thanks for being here!