First week of 52 Weeks to an Organized Home

This week I am starting the 52 weeks to an organized home project. http://www.home-storage-solutions-101.com/organized-home.html. I do realize that this officially started in January, but I just found it yesterday. I guess us late comers have the advantage of being able to see everyone else's results and get ideas from them. 

So, the first week starts in the kitchen, specifically the counters and sink. So here are my before pics.

We shall call this the microwave corner. Although there is much more there than just that.

This one will be dubbed the coffee corner.

The sink.

And the catchall area.

So far I have removed the microwave (after cleaning the inside of it), along with everything on top of it, cleaned the window and sill behind it and the counter it sits on. The microwave will probably go right back where it is as this really is the best place for it. I also purchased a basket at wal-mart today to put all the mail and school papers that come in the door and normally get dumped in the catchall area. Its not an ideal size and it is fabric which is also not really a good idea in the kitchen but it will do for now until I find something else.

I'm thinking I will get rid of my old knife block but keep the knives in a drawer and only have my newer one on the counter, which will free up a little bit of room in the coffee corner area.

Of course all of this will get rearranged once all the xmas decorations come out but none the less it will make room for those and everything can go back to its new home after the holidays.

I will post after pics sometime this week once I get it all done.

Healthy Thursday

So in the same vein as last week I am heading back to the wonders of toothpaste as a replacement cleaner for harsh chemicals. 

This next item I picked up for a few dollars at the Goodwill store. 

This is what it looked like when I brought it home. Pretty dirty and looking unsalvageable, but after five minutes with the toothpaste this is what I produced.

All nice and shiny, no its not perfect but that is okay it is a huge improvement over what it was when I first brought it home, and it looks just fine sitting in the middle of my dining room table with a pile of shells or fruit on it.

Healthy Thursday

So as you can see by the heading Thursday will be Healthy Thursday.

For the first healthy Thursday I want to share with you something I tried yesterday.

First of all I hate harsh chemicals and cleaning supplies so am always looking for ways to replace them.

Yesterday I was cleaning my kitchen and took down the vent cover above the stove and it was nasty, as you can see from this pic.

Now its not as nasty as it could be or has been but it still needed cleaning. I had just cleaned a silver trivet with (you guessed it) toothpaste and there was still some left in the tube so I figured why not give it a try. Now I keep an old toothbrush under my kitchen sink for cleaning all sorts of things and had used it on this before so I knew it would work. And I have to say it didn't do to bad, here is the after shot.

It did take the rest of the tube I was using plus one more but this is the size of the "tubes."

Sorry about the quality but the flash kept washing it out entirely. I got these little gems in a big bag of samples from the thrift store for about $2.00. There are at least five more toothpaste samples in the bag plus quite a few shampoo, conditioner and body wash samples. I would say there were probably 30 samples in all. Not bad for $2.00. 

So I would say the toothpaste definitly worked, it got all the grease and nastiness out of there, I try and clean the screen once a month but to be honest it had probably been at least six months since I last did it. So I would definitly try this again. 

If you have a great way to clean these without all the harsh fumes please let me know about it in the comments below.