Making Things Better #1

 

I mentioned last month that my focus in 2021 is to do some little projects around the house to make things just that much nicer for us.  Nothing over the top or overly extravagant, but some small changes I could make to improve our quality of life.  And of course to do these projects on a thrifty budget too.

 

I got started with a simple no cost project to make some cleaning rags out of an old bath towel and the legs from a worn out pair of flannel pajama pants.  They not only work great for cleaning up large messes (saves me from purchasing and using paper towels) but they look super cute too.  I used leftover scraps from the towel to make myself a new mopping pad for my old Swiffer mop and it works so well that a couple weeks later I made myself a second one with more leftover scraps.  I really love these mop pads.  For more details on how I made them just click here.  I still have more terry cloth and flannel scraps left to use up too.  I’ll be keeping that in mind as I work on other things.

 

Speaking of other things….  My next project was to tackle an annoying and frustrating situation in the kitchen.  I had picked up a larger utensil organizer at Wal-Mart a few years ago and it simply wasn’t cutting it.  Surprisingly it wasn’t large enough to hold a 12 place set of silverware and it is the largest one Rubbermaid makes.  And it slid all over the inside of the drawer so not only was my silverware falling out of it and getting all mixed up but every time you opened and closed the drawer it slid around and made a lot of racket.  What a mess!

 

I picked this up at Fred Meyer

It all fits!

I have been mulling over what to do and researching online all kinds of things to try and improve my rattily drawer.  Bamboo trays, expandable trays, plastic, wood, acrylic, mesh?  Something from the dollar store or something custom made?  I even checked out ideas on Youtube.  A few weeks ago I was at Fred Meyer and found a nice large utensil tray made out of sturdy black plastic with a vinyl lining at the bottom of each compartment and gripper feet on the bottom of it.  I figured it was worth a try and if it didn’t work out I could always return it.  Plus!  It was only $12.99 which was much less expensive than some of the other options I’d been looking at.  Not only does it hold everything, but that puppy doesn’t move! 

 

My other struggle
No way could I keep this mess organized the way I like it

But now it is and it is staying that way too!

It stays in place, my silverware stays inside of it and now we can open and close the drawer and not a bit of noise.  Hurray!  I was so happy about the silverware tray that I bought the big one for cooking utensils for $10.99 and redid that drawer too.  That one was a real game changer for us too.

 

The junk drawer before

...and after!  Much improved!

One of the old organizers I had in the utensil drawer I was able to reuse and put into our junk drawer to hold my Brita filters and some other larger items.  I reused the same divided organizers I already had in there and just washed them all out and reorganized them.  I threw some crap away too.  That pretty much takes care of my kitchen organizing projects.  The old silverware tray was donated for someone else to use.  With all of my kitchen drawers now clean, purged and beautifully organized it feels really good and we’ve been using our new setup for several weeks now.  I feel pretty confident that this project is a complete success.  It has definitely made things in the kitchen much better.