Declutter the Refrigerator

refrigerator before

Today I spent 15 minutes cleaning out my refrigerator. I did a good clean out a couple of months ago so it wasn't too bad today. Always start at the top, toss anything old and move the stuff you are keeping around so you can wash the shelf. Then go onto the next shelf.

That way you are not taking everything out at one time and leaving it laying all over the counters and tables. If the shelf is really dirty then just clear it and soak it in the sink awhile. Go do something else, then come back and finish just that shelf. If you are really short of time you can do one shelf a day until you finish.

Refrigerator after just 15 minutes

I still need to clean the bottom part of the door and wash two door shelves that are soaking. But other wise I am done. Nice clean frig.

There is one thing I do not like about this refrigerator and that is the way the door shelves just sit on pegs that are molded into the door liner. Over time, especially if you put heavy stuff on the shelves, the liner spreads, so the pegs do not hold the shelves securely and they fall off if they get bumped. When I need to buy a new frig I will look for one that has the door shelves fastened in a different way. I would love it if they would be supported by shelf brackets the way the glass shelves on the inside are.

If you have a big family and have a lot of stuff in your frig you might find some nice organizer racks. I know The Get Organized store has some for your cabinets to organize your canned goods and spices. They also have some for holding cans and bottles of soda and water in your refrigerator. And Amazon has some handy extra shelves too.

Declutter the Patio, Part II

patio before

So today I worked for 15 minutes decluttering the patio again. I pulled up some trees, picked up some trash and emptied some pots of their dirt. I'm putting the potting soil in one of the beds in my garden. The potting soil was a mix of commercial potting soil and good compost so I'm not going to waste all that good organic matter.

patio after, view one

So I've made a little bit of progress here. What  you can't see in the pics is that behind that old bookcase is a fire pit. I'm not fond of the way it is made, great for a big bonfire, but not too hot for actually cooking over it. I've given consideration over the years about what to do with this. I've thought of having a metal insert made, so I can control the draft better as well as having a better grill added in.






I've also given a lot of thought to closing off the bottom part and building a mud oven. I am intrigued by the idea of cooking in something so ancient as a mud oven. And of course I have lots of mud!  My favorite Urban Homesteaders added a cob oven to their homestead a few years ago. You can see the beginning of it at this post on their blog. Cobb is another term for building with mud.

A large portion of the earth's population live in buildings made of earth. Mud is a practical and plastic building material. All sorts of fanciful decoration is possible with it. Besides that if properly sited and designed a mud building will be cool in summer and warm in winter with much less utility use than conventional wood frame construction. It is very handy also in areas where there are not a lot of trees available.

patio after, 2nd view

But I digress; back to the patio. There is still a lot of dirt on the patio from the July 4th flooding. Along with a lot of pots and just plain junk that has accumulated.

patio, more to do

Then there is the strip of patio down the southwest side of the house, parallel to the kitchen. Lots of work left to do here.

Declutter the Patio

Today I did my 15 minutes out on my patio. If you are just joining me and want to see where the patio started out, I posted pictures on July 13, 2011

Today I took several bags of trash to the trash can and spent some time pulling weeds.

The stone walls of my patio were built in the 1950's-1960's by my grand parents. They would take their vacations and travel around the western United States. They brought back rocks from all of the states they went to. I just wish I knew which ones came from where.


There is still a lot of work to do but it is getting there a little at a time. I just wish my sun shade had not gotten broken.  A couple of years ago I hadn't taken the cover off of it and it snowed. I guess I never realized that snow is very heavy. The weight of it sitting on the canopy broke several of the frame pieces. Of course I've saved them, intending to go to the plumbing store to see if they could cut some pipes the same size. And of course that hasn't happened yet.

Of course the smartest thing to do would be to build a permanent trellis over the patio and cover it with deciduous vines. That way there will be shade in summer and sun in winter. So that is also on my mind, thinking about style, type, what sort of materials to use, how much would it cost..... So I'm looking over my garden book collection for ideas.



Style. So hard to decide. I love white picket fence cottage looks but I also like Rustic stuff like bentwood. And with all the junk I have laying around I could probably just devise one and call it All American Junk Yard. ;-)

Decluttering in the Kitchen, part V

behind the stove; you can see the mud from July 4th

Have you done your Weekly Home Blessing yet? If you don't know what that is, see my post here. It is basically a weekly run through the house, taking care of surface stuff, like trash, dusting, vacum, sweep & mop. While I was working on mine this morning I was sweeping in my kitchen and moved my rolly cart by the stove to sweep behind it. That's when I realized that the mud from July 4th had made it all the way down here.

To top that off there was bits of insulation the rats and mice have pulled out of the stove along with some dust bunnies. So I pulled the stove all the way out as far as I could. (it's gas, so range is limited by the flex line.)

the other corner behind the stove.

These before pictures were actually taken after I had swept up, but before I mopped.

behind the stove, after

So at least it looks a little bit better. My whole kitchen is in poor shape, especially the floor, so I don't spend a lot of energy on it, this is about as good as it gets.

side of stove before

While I had the stove out I realized that the side of it that is always next to the big cabinet had some grease and gunk on it so I cleaned most of that up with a Brillo pad and elbow grease.

side of stove after

It's not perfect, but it is better.

Reminds me too that I need to get the # for the repair man from my mom and give him a call. The oven is out in the stove again. At first I thought it was that darn electronic ignition again. But now I'm wondering if the rat had something to do with it.

Decluttering in the Kitchen, part VI

ants on fridge

ants on the edge of the door of the fridge

I noticed the other day that there were some little piss ants on the fridge the other day but I was busy and didn't pay them too much attention.

But then today when I opened the freezer door to see what was holding up the ice from the dispenser I realized that there were a LOT of ants.

The culprit seemed to be this basket of stuff up on top. mmmmm. The little piss ants had discovered the open bag of cough drops. So I dumped most of the stuff in the basket (it was more than a year old anyway, vitamins and medicine) and washed everything down.

These were the really tiny little ants that don't seem to bite. Some people call them sugar ants because they are always after sugary stuff. Did you know they smell like lemons when you smoosh them?

So now the outside of the fridge is about as clean as it is going to get. When this one croaks and I buy another one, I will probably buy a smaller one; I don't need a fridge this big and I could use a better freezer arrangement. That water & ice thing is handy but it sure takes up a lot of space in the freezer.

I also know that I will never again buy an appliance with a textured surface. Who the h*ll thought that up any way? I know it certainly wasn't the lady of the house who has to wash it! Even with a scrub brush you cannot get all the gunk out of that texture!

Why couldn't they leave well enough alone and give us a nice smooth finish like washing machines  have?

I looked at several other refrigerators and there was one a bit bigger for not too much of a bigger price, but of course the thing had a textured finish. This has a stainless smooth finish and while I don't really like the look of stainless this might be the only option to textured.

BTW, if you live in AZ and have APS electric service, they will pick up  your old fridge AND give you $30 for upgrading. Some restrictions apply, go to the APS website for more information.

Decluttering in the Kitchen, part III

Well I did another 15 minutes in the kitchen this evening. Tackled the pile that was sitting on those two chairs that are stacked together. They are stacked like that because a too big person sat in them and rocked back and forth, breaking loose a leg on each. I haven't had time to really mess with fixing them, so there they sit. Most of what was sitting on them was bags of fertilizer, which I moved to the front entry with the other bag of fertilizer.

Then I tackled the boxes of canning jars. I had already decided to chuck the commercial spaghetti sauce jars, simply because I don't need them at all. I have plenty of new and vintage home canning jars in a variety of sizes. I may whittle that collection down a bit in the future, but for today I got rid of one box of jars.  I also rearranged the canned goods and empty jars on the storage shelves in the corner. And discovered that I still have bags of bean and pea seeds to thresh out and put away from last year.

So at least now there is more walking space around this end of the kitchen. What I am hoping is that I can eventually get this corner totally emptied so that I can move in the wood cook stove that I am buying from my sister and which is currently living in her garage. Yes, that is an electric weed eater sitting there by the chainsaw. Another thing without a home. I have no outside storage that is safe from the elements and the critters so important things have to live in the house for the time being. You can also see the ice cream freezer on the floor and the fruit press on the broken chairs, empty wine jugs on the floor and assorted other stuff.

What I really really need is an old fashioned humongous farm house kitchen with a pantry and root cellar and a summer kitchen attached. What I have is a long skinny room-9'8"x19' chopped up on this end by the door to the porch and the door to the living room, no overhead cabinets, a ceiling with holes in it that slopes from nearly 8 feet to less than 6. Many other problems with it. Really I probably just need to rip it off the house and start over again. So I dream of the day when I can have a lovely harvest kitchen with plenty of work space, room for wine making, canning, drying, cooking and baking. Cozy in the winter and cool in the summer.


I have a copy of this book and love it. I can't wait until the day I can use the plans in it to build my own Harvest Kitchen. They have some lovely simple kitchen cabinet designs that you can build yourself, some with options for simpler joins and techniques for those that are new to cabinet building or don't have a lot of fancy tools.  Also some small simple projects like an herb drying rack and cutting board to start off with. The cabinet plans are built as modules so you can start with one and add to it as you have time and money.

Decluttering in the Kitchen, part II

Today I'm back in the kitchen, have to leave for work soon, so I really only had 15 minutes. If you are just joining me, you can see the kitchen 'before' pictures on this post from a couple of days ago.

I was able to sort through and move a few things around on the floor and sweep up the dirt in the area.

I also managed to clean off the table, except for one thing, an old drawer from a cabinet I ripped out. It was my 'junk' drawer and it's still full of junk! So it will probably need a 15 minute session all to itself.
The reason I want to keep the drawer itself, though is because my grand dad made the cabinet it was in and while the cabinet was in bad shape, the drawer is still pretty sound. So I'm thinking of hanging it on a wall someplace as a little display shelf.

 I will probably not tackle what's in the 'junk' drawer anytime soon. Right now my game plan is to work on the quick and easy stuff, so I get the most bang for my buck.

The large piles of stuff, things I can get rid of or move to another area, thus clearing large amounts of space in a short period of time. That does mean that I am just stashing things in other places; like tools & hardware are just getting dumped on the back porch and anything craft or art related is just getting dumped in the studio. But that is actually part of my master plan.

My goal is to get my main living spaces fairly free of clutter before tackling the really tedious stuff, like sorting through and organizing hundreds of assorted bits of screws, nuts, bolts, washers and miscellaneous hardware. Or organizing hundreds of containers of different kinds of paint, along with all sorts of paper, new and used.

The point is, don't get bogged down in the little details in the beginning. Make as much of a clean sweep as you can at first. It will improve your morale and your accomplishment will give you the energy to carry you through the tedious bits later.