Styling Open Shelving

Earlier this week my son and I took off the cabinet doors and hardware in the kitchen.

We are beginning the kitchen renovation in the hopes that it will be completed before the Christmas holidays are upon us.  (cue the laugh track!)

Seeing as I now have to look at everything that is in my cabinets, I took some time yesterday afternoon to clear out things that haven't been used in awhile.  This then led to trying to style what was left in there to make it look "prettier". Using what you have is always a good no-cost way to decorate.

I am toying with the idea of removing these two cabinets and replacing them with two big chunky shelves instead.  To be honest with you though, I'm not sure I can do it.

This is the bare minimum that I could bring myself to pair down to, and quite frankly I still think there is too much here to be visually pretty.  I made sure to incorporate my blue Ball and Crown mason jars and a few other accessories.

But the most distracting thing for me is this orange Ethernet cable that you can see in the back here.
In order to get wi-fi in the rest of the house, the modem is in this cabinet.  Although I did my best to hide it, I'm not sure I want it on display all the time like it would be if we change this cabinet out to shelving.

For now, I am leaving it as is, and I'm searching for other possible methods or places to hide the modem without seeing.  I'd love it if you have any suggestions!!

Cheryl

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A Stroll Thru Life

The Spice in my Life...

In case you aren't aware, I've been trying to get my home organized by keeping up with Organizer Extraordinaire, Peter Walsh, and his 31Days2Organization...

Yesterday's challenge was organizing the spice cupboard.  Here's a look at my cupboard BEFORE.

It wasn't a total mess but there were alot of spices that were old and not being used.  First thing I did was to take everything out of the cabinet and place it on top of the stove.

I had this spice organizer hiding in the back of the cabinet.  Many of the spices were old so I pitched them in the garbage and refilled many of them.

I also bought a few more spice jars at the Dollar Tree to free up some of the loose bags of spices that were in my cabinet. They were a great deal at $1 and have the shaker lids on them. 

 To keep track of what spices were in them I just used some cheap labels and a sharpie marker.  But you could get very fancy and make your own labels or perhaps use chalkboard labels and some chalk.  I was looking more for something that I had on hand and that wouldn't take alot of extra time.

Now I could get rid of all this extra packaging that was taking up valuable space in my cabinet.

Here are my AFTER photos!

It took me the better part of an hour to get this challenge completed.  But its nice to know that all my spices are now fresh and organized...

Thank Peter Walsh  for another great challenge!

Cheryl