Cleaning Cupboards

It’s February, and this month, I’ve decided to enhance my life by doing some creative organizing. This is not my usual way, but I’ve been inspired by one of Martha Stewart Living’s beautiful new publications I found on the newsstand last Saturday entitled, "Organizing: Simple Strategies to Cut the Clutter" (2012). As is Martha’s usual way, the magazine is filled with gorgeous photographs of entryways, kitchens, bedrooms, baths, offices and utilities rooms, all efficiently organized, like the inside of Martha’s brain. Don’t get me wrong, I am what you would call gently-organized. Everything in our house has a place. It just doesn’t always stay there. And the loosely-organized vignettes in my own kitchens, baths, and offices are sometimes festooned with dust and the occasional cobweb, so I decided to go for it.

My first project was reorganizing the cupboards that store my dishes and glasses. I was motivated to start with this project because we had gifted ourselves at Christmas with some new French glasses – in three sizes – to replace some that had been badly discolored by dishwasher chemicals, and I needed to find a place to put them. To begin, I removed all items from four separate cupboards and tossed everything that was ugly, didn’t have a lid, or that I didn’t use any more. This reduced my stash by about 50%. I followed two guidelines as I returned glasses, storage dishes, bowls and dishes to the empty shelves. First, no storage dish was allowed without a lid on it. And second, I thought carefully about how I used each item, and I put things back in easily accessible and logically-grouped places.

Though my newly organized cupboards aren’t quite as striking as some of Martha’s gorgeous vignettes, they have completely changed the way I feel when I’m in my kitchen. For a few hours effort – and no major purchases – I can now open my cupboard doors to see rows of sparkling glasses, neatly-lidded storage dishes, and easily accessible plates, saucers, and bowls. Since I collect vintage dishes, it took a while to find a place and space for everything – but the effort was well worth it, and the tossing of my unnecessary and ‘not favorite’ objects was liberating.

With the excess gone, the beauty of the objects I have collected for use in our kitchen was more evident. I remembered how much I loved the ‘starfish’ mugs my sister gifted me with. The stack of white Williams Sonoma® plates that we use for family dinners glowed on their own spacious new shelf, and my grandmother’s crystal glasses sparkled because they now had breathing space around them.

My reorganization created another positive result I hadn’t planned on. My husband, inspired by my own wild tossing and reorganizing spree, took on a project of his own after I reorganized the kitchen cupboards, and spent the following Saturday defrosting the freezer, cleaning out the refrigerator – and creating ‘bread’, ‘vegetable’, ‘fruit’ and ‘meat’ shelves in each of them.

So, like a mid-winter snowball, gathering size and speed as it rolls downhill, I’ve decided to move through the closets and spaces in our house – slowly, one cupboard, one closet at a time, and discard everything I don’t love or regularly use. Then, I’ll return the remaining objects to their spaces with an eye to the esthetic. My small cleaning spree has reminded me that household objects and clothes and lotions and bottles possess a utilitarian beauty and can be artfully arranged if I take my time and enjoy the process. Arranging books and family photographs on shelves can be a living art form. Who knows, perhaps I’ll even be inspired by Martha’s characteristic glass canisters, wire baskets, and labeled magazine holders – and spring for a new set of bowls, or kitchen dishtowels. This winter, I am finding that the ancient art of ‘spring-cleaning’ can be deeply satisfying. Now I’m off to my bedroom closet, to discard some tired sweaters and shoes. Who knows? Perhaps I’ll make room for some new ones.

Mom-Mom