OAKLAND TRIBUNE

January 29, 2003

by Jolene Thym

Pro organizer can clean up even the most cluttered kitchen

I like tidy.  I want tidy.  I need everything to be put away, out of sight all day, every day.  It's OK to use a pan or a dish or a cup, but please put it back ASAP.  Don't even think about leaving stacks of stuff on my counters.  And don't talk to me about convenience.  It never hurt anyone to bend down to get something.  Or to reach.  It won't kill you, I promise.

Knowing all of this, you can understand why the last thing I thought I could possibly need help with is organizing my kitchen.  When my editor presented the idea to me over the phone, I rolled my eyes, threw my hands up in the air -- and agreed to invite a stranger into my kitchen.

I had to admit that every drawer is full.  Plastic containers tumble out of the cabinet at will.  Pans and dishes are arranged in perfect puzzle order -- one dish out of place and there's no hope.  I realize there is a slight space crunch, but I have the perfect solution:  We need to cut a hole in the ceiling to increase vertical storage.  It's the obvious answer.  It's what I want to do.  I don't need an organizer.  I need a hole in the ceiling.

Meg Connell, a professional organizer from Oakland, arrives at our miniature mansion with a smile, ready to help.  She heaps on the compliments about the colors and décor of my kitchen as I expose my inner self, revealing the contents of more than a dozen cupboards.

Each time I open a door, she has questions.  I have answers.  Folders filled with things like bank papers, school papers and dentists bills in the cupboard above the microwave are carefully labeled with their contents.  Why would she ask what they are?  She points to the glue and glitter.  What can I say?  I love crafts.

She opens what she calls the pantry and looks askance at my linens.  Yes, linens.  She points to the giant bin of barrettes and hair scrunchies and curlers.  Three daughters, need I say more?

Soon, the questions stop.  She quietly and politely continues to explore, seemingly searching for something.  Finally, she asks.

"What do you eat?"  Ah, yes, the food.  With trepidation and shame, I lead her to our sloppy laundry room, home to rice, potatoes, soda pop, canned goods, vinegars, syrup, and enough snack foods to ward off weight loss for months.

Connell nods in understanding as she surveys the stash -- and thankfully does not look behind the laundry bin and under the grimy sink to see our supply of sauces, syrups and juices that keep company with carpet cleaner, wax and bleach.

She seems so content with her discovery that I don't tell her about the chocolate and tuna in my closet and the wine and soda and cookies in my coat closet.

We return to the kitchen and Connell pulls a paper out of her briefcase.  As she begins to write, she asks brightly, "Wouldn't it be nice to have the food in the kitchen?"

Precisely why this novel thought did not occur to me after 17 years of living in this house, I am not sure.  I try to explain the why behind our odd food storage system.  But there's nowhere to put all of this,"  I whine, knowing she will understand our crowded reality.

Again, Connell smiles.  She really is very nice.  And diplomatic.  "The idea is to get things into the room that they are used," she quips.  Books belong on a bookshelf.  Papers belong in a file cabinet, tools in the garage, candles in the linen closet.

Once each item is in the room where it belongs, you make a space for it.  Connell has another question.  "Tell me:  What's working for you in the kitchen and what isn't?"

I told her that my husband hates diving into the cupboard under the counter for plastic containers, and that I was frustrated with the ultra-deep cabinets and the main utility drawer located right under the cutting board.

Connell isn't one for wasting time.

She started asking how often I used various items, then began switching drawer contents, moving the potholders up a drawer, favorite utensils down a drawer, and rarely used items across the kitchen.  She then suggested swapping the contents of entire cupboards.  The often-used plastic containers, she says, can go up into the convenient cabinet above the counter.  Now that the kids are grown, the platters and vases that were stored there can be put in a lower cabinet.

"You have to really ask yourself how often you use something," she says.  "If it's everyday, then it can be in a prime area."  An item that is used once a month, once a year, or even less needs to be stored in the most remote parts of a cupboard.

"What you need to be concerned with is utilizing the space that is easy to reach."

Besides devoting half of the space of a prime cabinet to important papers, the other huge problem with my kitchen, Connell says, is the utter waste of space in the main pantry cabinet.

"This is really valuable space.  You need to make it work for you."

It's OK to use cupboards and drawers as-is, she says, but real organization requires a few tools.

"You can clean a drawer or a cupboard like this out over and over," she says, 'but it still gets messy because it's a design problem."  No kidding.

Drawers need to be divided.  Doors and shelves sometimes need platforms or racks.  Really deep cupboards and low cupboards become much more usable with roll-out shelving.

Pantry Before                       Pantry After

Exactly what someone need to get organized and stay organized, Connell points out, can be fund at stores like Target, Wal-Mart and Home Depot.  But people who need even more remedial help or examples should probably window-shop at specialty stores such as Organize It, Organized Living, Hold Everything and the oldest in the group, The Container Store.

One look inside the store and you know that these people exist to be organized.  They want to be organized.  They want you to be organized.  They want the entire world to be organized.

"Our lives have become so busy these days that time is our most precious commodity," says Mona Williams, senior merchandise director for The Container Store chain, based in Texas.  "We are desperate for the kind of organization that gives us a little more time and helps us to achieve a sense of control over our lives.

"Also, we've seen a jump in sales since 9/11.  People are staying closer to home and are spending a lot more time in their kitchens."

The reason why kitchens often get so out of control, she says, is that the function of the kitchen is continually changing.

"The kitchen isn't just for cooking or eating in any more.  It seems to be where we congregate, which means a lot goes on there.  We see kitchens as the communication center for the family."

I tell Williams about my most problematic pantry cabinet.  It's this really deep cabinet, more like a black hole, where things just disappear.  In the cabinet is a snack shelf, a cans shelf (unbeknownst to half of the family,) a breakfast shelf and two bulk foods shelves.

The bulk foods aren't a problem, but on the other shelves, there is so much space that every time someone opens a package of crackers or cookies and puts it away on whatever shelf they have personally selected as the snack shelf for the day, it falls into the the black hole, never to be seen or tasted again.

The entire cupboard, we suspect, is the place where all uneaten snacks go to dry out, shrivel up and turn rancid.

The fix for such a cabinet as this, Williams says, was invented decades ago.  It's called an elfa drawer unit, a plastic coated metal frame with wire drawers that fits into the cabinet space.

"With the roll-outs, you can see everything you have at a glance.  Things don't get lost,"  Williams says.  "The key is not to waste space (anywhere in your kitchen).  You want to start from the bottom up or the top down and organize every inch of your kitchen." 

For the most part, Connell's solution to my kitchen troubles was a bit like musical cabinets, a job of relocating.

"You have all your systems in place," she tells me "they just need tweaking." 

For example, she applauds the fact that I have serving platters and bowls all stored together.  But they are high and difficult, if not dangerous, to reach.  Likewise, she likes my bulk foods storage system in glass jars.  But they are stored in prime areas, rather than in the remote cabinets that are for "occasional-use" items.

Connell also confirms my suspicion that this place is just plain full.  "You seem to have used nearly every available space.  You are bulging at the seams." 

That said, she goes on to share an observation that will delight my husband:  "One of your problems seems to be that you want so much for things to look nice that you overlook functionality."

To that, I think "And your point being?" but I smile and nod, knowing that little quirk about me will never change.  In the two hours that Connell and I have known each other, it's clear that she understands that too.

"You might check into some of the new storage ideas.  Some are made of wood.  Some are really good looking," she offers.  She also suggests that an antique cabinet that matches the other furniture in the house might be converted into a home business center, and that I might be able to swap one of my small, not-so-pretty china cabinets for a hutch with drawers, so I can store my linens there instead of the pantry.

"You can give that one to your daughter when she moves out."

For others in my storage predicament, Connell shares the comforting fact that I am "normal."

"People who have established households tend to have not only everything they need, but a whole lot more.  Many people in your situation just start stacking and piling things everywhere."

In her years as an organizer, Connell says she has encountered all kinds of people who like to keep their homes all different ways.  To those who like organization but are struggling, she offers this advice:

"The solution to every storage problem is to define a space for it and to create a system to store it.

"My goal when I come into a person's home is not to change them or to get them to throw stuff out, but to try to help them organize what they have."

When I tell her I had an extra waffle iron, a toaster I never use and too many cooking utensils, she suggests I remove those items from the precious kitchen space, and put them away for my children, who will be starting their own homes soon.

She notes my rather large library of cookbooks stored in and around the kitchen.  "You might want to sort through them and make sure that you really want all of them but you really just need a place for them to be," she says.  "You need a bookcase."  She pauses.  "You need two."

Three hours after she arrived, Connell hands me a list of things to do to make my life more organized, things that I am not at all convinced I need to do.  After all, I didn't really need an organizer.

But after I said good bye, I had to finish organizing that drawer she started to organize.  Then it just made sense to follow her suggestion of moving those towels and washcloths to the drawer across the kitchen that was filled mostly with junk.

But, of course, you can't throw out the contents of one drawer without going through the one right next to it.

"Mom, what's for dinner?" my 10-year-old asks four hours later.  I barely hear the question, as I keep thinking "Food in the kitchen, she says the food should be in the kitchen."

I dump the contents of a file cabinet -- filled with kid projects and mementos -- and move all of the family papers out of the kitchen, into the file cabinet.  I retrieve food and more food from all over the house to put in the now-empty space in the kitchen cabinet.

'Uh, dinner?" still no answer.  By midnight, I'm too tired to think.  The next morning, pleased to wake up to some food in the kitchen, I mull over Connell's idea to move the plastic containers into the platters cupboard.  In the middle of cleaning up breakfast, I shift into high gear.

Everything out, everything in.  Houston, there's a problem.  The platters don't fit in the plastic cupboard.  Undaunted, I sit and ponder until I hit upon a solution. 

Plastics to the platter cupboard, platters to the baking cupboard, and baking dishes to the plastics cupboard.  Hours pass.  Bags of unwanted items are carted out to the trash.

The sun has gone down.  The kitchen is ergonomically organized, with food in its cupboards.  Maybe I'll look over Connell's list again tomorrow.  After all, she was really nice.

RULES OF THUMB FOR GETTING ORGANIZED

Meg Connell, a professional organizer from Oakland offers these suggestions to people who would like to add some organization to their kitchen or pantry:

Survey every square inch of space in your kitchen and decide which areas aren't working for you.  Start there.

Make sure that all spaces within easy reach are home to items that are used nearly every day.

Space that is too high to reach can be home to items that are used less often.

Modify cabinets with pull-out shelves or lazy Susans so that you don't have to pull entire contents out to get to a single pan.  It will save lots of frustration later.

Try not to store pans or other cooking utensils more than two deep.  Having to dig to get to what you want promotes disorganization and frustration.

When areas continually become disorganized, it is often because of a design problem.  Is the drawer or cabinet too shallow, too deep or too narrow for what you are trying to store?  Try moving those items to drawers or cabinets better suited for them, or modify the drawers or cabinets with organizing inserts to make them more useful.

In organizing drawers, try to always keep like items together in a separate section.  Most used items should be at the front of the drawer.  Claim space at the back of a drawer for seasonal or infrequently used items.

In organizing foods, put like items together whenever possible.

Keep small amounts of staples in prime, easy-to-reach space.  Store backup supplies in high or low cabinets.

If you haven't used an item for an entire year, consider throwing it out.

When trying to organize, think vertical.  Try hanging lids, pans or other items on the wall or from a rack attached to the ceiling.

When analyzing space, consider negative space (ie: air.)  You can use space more efficiently by adding or moving shelves or adding cabinet accessories.

Don't overlook the insides of cabinet doors as storage areas.  They are great spaces for racks of all shapes and sizes. 

Keep in mind that for every minute you spend organizing, you save six minutes later on.

Be sure to clean out your prime, ergonomic areas every few months so that they are always in top working order.  Other areas can be cleaned out less often, but don't forget to clean out and throw things away as often as you can.

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