How to Organize Your Whole Kitchen in Just Fifty Years

A restful kitchen is an organized kitchen. For me, what could be more relaxing than all the food items beautifully arranged in matching containers that perfectly fit together in the available space, easy to access, easy to use, and easy to maintain? 

It seems attainable. After all, the internet is full of organized pantries that spark immediate aspirations to #kitchengoals:

Image from How to Create the Perfectly Organized Pantry

 I love this pantry from She Gave It a Go. Baskets, clear square containers, uniformity, just the right amount of space between items - both in how it looks and in ease of finding everything, it's a definite success. 

Yet if I attempted to model my own pantry after this one, I'd give it a go and give up. For one, I don't have enough paper towels to fill three baskets, and if I did, I'd have to throw out my recycle bin and my oat bucket. 

The point is, organization doesn’t have to and shouldn’t involve stress. It’s all too easy to become discontent with what we have been blessed with, especially when scrolling through pages of perfectly-positioned photos like the one above.

Organization, for most of us, is a journey. It can’t happen all at once, and it shouldn’t. Life isn’t like that. Even if I invested the money, time, and energy into transforming my pantry into an exact duplicate of one of my favorite Pinterest pantries, it wouldn’t last. I’d come home with the groceries and with tired, hungry children, and what would happen? I’d toss the groceries into the pantry just as they were—no dumping into fancy containers—and go feed my children. I’d use something up or purchase something new, and in a matter of time the once-perfect pantry has descended into clutter once more. 

February 2018

This is not to say we shouldn’t invest the effort into organization. Absolutely we should. Yet it’s about mindset: are we approaching organization with a restful heart?
A restful heart:

· Is willing to accept less than perfection because it knows life isn’t perfect
· Expects and plans for disruptions and disorder
· Responds in grace when the system is messed up
· Perseveres in doing and redoing the same daily task with a heart of love
· Realizes that life is a process that involves small steps
· Is content and thankful
· Does not envy
· Prioritizes what’s important and spends the time there

Before I was married and as a newlywed, I had plenty of time to plan and arrange my kitchen and pantry as I wished. Originally, “pantry” space was just one cupboard, as none of my kitchen closets had any sort of shelving. Pregnancies and various health needs followed. At least once or twice each year, the way we ate shifted. We weren’t using some of the recipes I’d collected in my homemade family cookbook. We dabbled in gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, low carb, low fat, high meat, low meat, and balanced meal eating styles at different times. The ingredients in my kitchen continually shifted.

The perfect organization system to meet our needs at those times would not meet our family’s needs now.

February 2018 

What’s more, one interesting tendency I’ve noticed in my quest for an organized lifestyle is that we aren’t capable of making every change at once. We’re not 100% creative and we don’t know every answer the first time. It takes time mulling over the issue, even unconsciously.

Over the past several years, I’ve organized and decluttered many times. Each time, I gain some small inspiration or idea for improvement on the previous system. Each time, I feel like the result is better than the time before. As I’ve used each item and prepared each meal, I become more familiar with how I cook, how our family eats, and what my ultimate goals for our kitchen and mealtimes are—and thus, I am able to arrange each item in a way that will better meet those goals.

I love labels. And glass containers. Using what I have on hand! March 2019

So—how do we perfectly organize our kitchen to provide a restful atmosphere for food preparation and consumption?

· Pray or meditate.
· Accept that you can’t do it all at once.
· Look around and note what you do know needs to be done. Write it down.
· Prioritize.
· Work on one small task today.
· Creatively use and repurpose what you already have. 

· Repeat for a lifetime.
· Enjoy the journey and the rewards along the way!

Today, as my daughter and I worked on our pantry, I pondered these things. I’m thankful for small steps both in my kitchen and in life. Both are so far from perfect, but my pantry better meets my family’s needs than it did yesterday or last year, and my soul is more in tune to the voice of the One who calls me to rest in Him, the one to whom I say, “Your kingdom come; Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” 

March 2019

It’s easy to visualize the results and get discouraged because we can’t get there today. Yet as we do the little things faithfully today—as we do what we can at this moment to the best of our ability with a restful heart—we will one day look around and marvel at what it has become.