Under The Sink –Rethink

Sometimes you try something and it just doesn’t work out.  The sink under the kitchen seems to be a pain for many people–and I’ve seen the pins to prove it.  A few years ago, I organized under the kitchen sink and even did a spiffing up update in January with the rest of the house.  But, something just wasn’t working right.  Somehow, piles had grown where order once was.  And, every time I reached for something under the sink, something else fell over.  I found myself getting frustrated which led to me getting lazy and stuff was just getting shoved wherever it would fit.  Not cool.  This is what it looked like this morning.

The before… You can see how if you grab one thing another thing will for sure tumble out too.

While the above picture is not terrible, it was definitely a space that was giving me grief.  I had a plan, but I will admit that I made an organizing mistake when I was rethinking how I wanted this space to look.  I had seen how someone used stackable bins to organize their under the sink area.  I thought I might give it a shot.  While at the store, I spied a set of 3 stackable bins and knew for sure they wouldn’t stack more than two high under our sink.  But, I was ok with that.  I also knew that I should have measured my space before I went to the store (that was the mistake as you’ll see below), but I decided to wing it.  I could always take the little guys back if they didn’t fit.

It’s amazing that all this stuff fit under here! And, that most of it fit again when I put it back.

I started out by removing everything from under the sink.  I think part of my problem was that I was collecting things under there with the “just in case” mindset–which is a definite way to build clutter and cause chaos.  After removing a few items (glass jars, old cleaners, etc.), I attempted to add the bins to the left side–no dice.  One would fit, but the garbage disposal got in the way to stack the bins.  They did fit on the right side, but the black caddy wouldn’t fit on the left.  After some thinking, I decided the caddy isn’t really necessary.  I never take these items anywhere, so they don’t need to be portable.  The caddy will get resued somewhere else–not sure where yet.  I wiped out the bottom of the cabinet, and put everything I was keeping back.  Everything we use frequently is up front in the white bins.  The other items are located behind and are still easy to access.

Here is the finished product!

So much better! I did some cleaning in the kitchen after moving everything around and it worked great!

This whole process took about 20 minutes.  Sometimes a quick rethink and refresh is all something needs.  Are there any small places you have organized but have made a big impact?

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