The previous weekend I felt those sudden Spring urges to refresh and clean some of the rooms in our house, specifically the kitchen. And specifically, the kitchen drawers. This meant that some overflow items were moved into our gorgeous new MCM sideboard, a recent Facebook Marketplace find.
There may only be about thirty more lunches to pack for the kids before summer break, but anything I can do to make that experience run smoother helps!
I moved their lunch bags to another bottom kitchen drawer, closer to where I make their lunches every morning. So now, once their lunches are made, I simply open the drawer by my feet and pop their containers into their bags. With minutes to spare on a daily basis, this saves precious time. (Sorry, I need to snap a proper photo when all their lunch gear is in that drawer, so you’ll just have to imagine how it looks at the moment)
Our cutlery drawer has undergone a few renditions since we’ve been in our house. I moved the cutlery tray sideways here but it’s always felt a bit awkward and unnatural, so I moved it back to how it would normally go in.
I could have purchased fancy drawer dividers, but instead chose to use what we had… and discovered that kids’ lunch containers make excellent drawer dividers. The mint blue/green trays were from Whitney’s cute bento lunch box that I got her at Christmas.
I don’t know about your kids, but ours have a tendency to be fairly rough on their lunch containers (and lunch bags). I once witnessed our eldest daughter hurling her lunch bag onto the concrete at school. Like, what?!! And no wonder why her water bottle would often come home dented all over. A savvier mom would have invested in a higher quality lunch container years ago, but dishing out the big bucks up front was too hard for me. I’ve simply forced our kids to continue to use the half-broken containers since they needed to learn to respect their possessions a bit better. The trade-off though, is having to wash and deal with annoying broken lids every day, twice a day, multiplied by three (kids).
So, I think before next year, I will definitely be buying each of them a proper hard-core lunch container, like this or this, if I go for the cheaper version.
Still not the prettiest situation here, but I didn’t want to spend money on a fancy cutlery tray when I’ve already enlisted Matt to build me some drawer dividers. I have to practice “Prairie Patience” as he likes to call it. Maybe by Summer’s end, I’ll have a better organized drawer to show you.
And speaking of Spring cleaning, our street will be having a yard sale tomorrow! I have always wanted to have a big enough yard/driveway to be able to participate in one of these. When we lived in Toronto, we didn’t really have a front yard so even though we did have a “yard” sale one year it wasn’t set up to its fullest potential. I’ve looked up tips online and will let you know how successful I am next week. There will be about nine or ten houses total and we have great weather forecasted, so fingers crossed!
Have a refreshing weekend wherever you are and Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms!
Wow! So organized! That sideboard is absolutely gorgeous. It looks mid century??? I spent most of today trying to organize our (small) walk-in closet. Ouch my feet. If W wants any old clothes, can you ask her to let me know asap, as I will donate in a couple of days. I do have one vintage fancy party dress, 60 plus years old, fitted (is that grammatically correct?) my 18 year old self! I can take a photo if she wants.
Your wonderful house is coming together!