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Peace of Mind Organizing

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Articles tagged with kitchen

Worth repeating (again): Reflections after a year in our new kitchen

7 September 2023 | Comments [0] »

We renovated our kitchen in 2016. A year later I posted some reflections. Lately, I’ve been talking with friends and clients about kitchen design, so I’ve had a chance to think about how much I love this kitchen. The new kitchen has absolutely been life enhancing and we still love it. We’ve done a little bit of rearranging but the organizational infrastructure I set up seven years ago remains solid. My only regret is that we took 24 years to renovate our old red kitchen!

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Worth repeating: Reflections after a year in our new kitchen

20 September 2021 | Comments [3] »

We renovated our kitchen five years ago, in 2016. A year later I posted some reflections. The new kitchen has been life enhancing and we still absolutely love it. We’ve done a little bit of rearranging but the organizational infrastructure I set up five years ago remains solid. My only regret is that we took 24 years to renovate our old red kitchen!

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Worth repeating: A few products can transform a space

17 May 2021 | Comments [0] »

Four years ago, I had the pleasure of going to New York City to help a dear friend organize her new apartment. I wrote this post then about how some key products really helped organize her items in her small kitchen.

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Worth repeating: The importance of a place for everything

19 October 2020 | Comments [0] »

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Organizing a bottom drawer freezer

28 August 2019 | Comments [3] »

Our new refrigerator, an LG with a bottom freezer drawer, was delivered yesterday. Today I had the pleasure of organizing it! I’ve never had a freezer drawer before (nor organized one for a client), so it was a fun challenge.

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Reflections after a year in our new kitchen

19 June 2017 | Comments [3] »

A year ago today, our kitchen renovation was complete and I finished unpacking and organizing our stuff into the new kitchen. A month or two later, I wrote a blog series about the renovation. I just re-read the series and relived the joy of that project. Honestly, it was a bit of a pain while we were going through it, but the results were absolutely worth the hassle and the money.

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A few products can transform a space

4 May 2017 | Comments [1] »

This week, I had the opportunity to help a dear friend organize the storage spaces of her new apartment in New York City. Having just moved in, she didn’t need any decluttering, so I was able to get busy while she was at work. After I analyzed her needs, I went to the Container Store website and scoped out some products, making a Wish List.

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The Breville Tea Maker: A Unitasker worth having

13 February 2017 | Comments [0] »

I typically avoid buying appliances or gadgets that serve only one purpose. The wonderful blog Unclutterer calls those Unitaskers and features them on Unitasker Wednesdays.

But last month I made an exception to that rule and purchased the Breville BTM800XL One-Touch Tea Maker. It’s an electric tea kettle and brewer. Two of my friends and colleagues, Amanda Rickers and Sheila DeHart each had one and raved about it. I found it irresistible.

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Favorite storage features of my new kitchen

25 August 2016 | Comments [10] »

This is the third and last post in a series about the kitchen renovation we did this spring. (Click here for the other two posts.) Today I want to highlight a few of the storage features of my new kitchen that make me smile. Nothing earth-shatteringly innovative here, just really nice conveniences.

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Lessons learned from our kitchen renovation

22 August 2016 | Comments [7] »

Last week, I shared photos of our lovely new kitchen. We’re not quite finished…there’s the tiniest bit of finish work that needs to be finished as soon as we get the supplies from the cabinet company. But for all intents and purposes, it’s done. Here are some of the lessons I gleaned from the renovation experience. Perhaps they’ll help you if you redo your kitchen.

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Happiness is a new kitchen

18 August 2016 | Comments [4] »

After only 24 years of living with an 80s-era kitchen in our 1908 home, my husband and I had our kitchen remodeled this spring. It wasn’t strictly necessary. (In fact, this Huffington Post piece on not needing a new kitchen really resonated with me.) But it seemed time. And, of course, once it was done we wondered why we waited. We absolutely love it.

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The importance of a place for everything

9 May 2016 | Comments [1] »

My husband and I are in the midst of a kitchen renovation. If you’ve ever done that, you know how disruptive it can be. We’re lucky in that we actually have a spare kitchen to use. (We live in a two-family house, but no longer rent out the downstairs apartment.) Still, despite my best efforts to organize the downstairs kitchen for our temporary use, everything feels topsy turvy.

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Worth repeating: I'm officially hooked on working with POs

18 February 2016 | Comments [0] »

Five-and-a-half years ago, professional organizer Aby Garvey rocked my world by helping me reorganize (and rethink) my pantry. This weekend my plan is to declutter and fine tune my pantry, which has gotten out of control (as pantries have a tendency to do). I’m taking inspiration from this post I wrote after that initial session. If you have a pantry (or other space) to organize this weekend, maybe you’ll find it inspiring, too!

Last month I blogged about working with professional organizer Karel Worley in my basement. With my husband’s help, we tackled a dirty decluttering job in only four hours. It was one that I’d been dreading for months. It was amazing how much we got done and how painless it was.

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Peace of Mind Organizing in the news

2 November 2015 | Comments [2] »

I was delighted when I was asked to organize the pantry of St. Louis Magazine’s dining editor, George Mahe, for an article for the Winter issue of the glossy newsstand magazine, St. Louis At Home.

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Worth repeating: Storing the food-storage containers

3 June 2015 | Comments [0] »

I’m a huge believer in storing food-storage containers with the lids on them. I resisted it at first, but now I love it and I encourage all my clients to consider it. A year ago, I wrote (another) post about it, that I think bears repeating.

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Labels in the refrigerator?

30 March 2015 | Comments [3] »

I love labels and I talk about their value all the time. Recently, I wrote on Organize Your Family History that when I see a failed organizing system in a client’s home, I almost always notice the absence of labels.

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Storing the food-storage containers

11 April 2014 | Comments [1] »

Yesterday I had the opportunity to help a client declutter her somewhat vast and varied supply of food-storage containers. Different shapes, different sizes, different brands. We emptied all the containers and lids out of the cupboards and drawers and put them on the dining-room table. I set about sorting them so I could match up tops and bottoms so she could see what she had. There ended up being some tops without bottoms (and vice versa) and the client ended up letting go of a lot of containers, which was great.

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How long does food last?

10 July 2012 | Comments [4] »

When I’m helping a client declutter a kitchen, the question of how long food lasts comes up a lot. In my own family, the question of how long leftovers keep comes up a lot as well. (My husband and I seem to have differing opinions.)

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Extreme small-space storage solutions

14 April 2010 | Comments [2] »

File this under “Only in New York.” Via Twitter, I saw a link provided by Sharon Lowenheim, the Organizing Goddess, to a New York Post article about people who use their refrigerators and ovens to store clothing. Storage space is at such a premium in tiny NYC apartments and these people never cook, so this makes sense to them.

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We have a winner!

13 July 2009 | Comments [0] »

On Tuesday of last week, I posted about organizing my food-storage containers and offered a free set of Rubbermaid Easy Find Lid food storage containers to one lucky commenter.

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Organizing food-storage containers

7 July 2009 | Comments [27] »

In yesterday’s blog post I chronicled the great fun of working with professional organizer Aby Garvey on my pantry. I hinted that organizing the food-storage containers was a bit of a challenge. I’ll tell you the saga now. Don’t worry: it has a happy ending.

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I'm officially hooked on working with POs

6 July 2009 | Comments [6] »

Last month I blogged about working with professional organizer Karel Worley in my basement. With my husband’s help, we tackled a dirty decluttering job in only four hours. It was one that I’d been dreading for months. It was amazing how much we got done and how painless it was.

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A peek inside the client's mind

18 February 2008 | Comments [0] »

When I visit the home of a client for the first time, I’m often struck by the trust that’s been placed in me. For some of my clients, I’m the first visitor they’ve welcomed into their homes in some time.

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