Kitchen Reorg: Hot Drink Zone and Clear Counters

• For my pantry reorg post (lots of kitchen shots), see here. 
• For my serving dishes and plasticware post, see here. 
• For my baking cupboards post, see here. 
• For my spice cupboard post, see here.

My kitchen reorganization project is winding down! I have only the cupboard above my refrigerator to do after this...

Here is what my kitchen counters looked like before:

Nothing horrific, but a bit too cluttered for my (and my husband's) taste. One of the things I was really hoping to accomplish was to move the toaster off the counter and the whiteboard/bulletin board into the laundry room.

My husband was the savior of the day (heck, the month!) when he finally put up the board in the laundry room!

I was able to make room for the toaster in the cupboard discussed below and so my counters now look like this!

Afters:

(The wire tray to the left is my inbox from my paper clutter course.)

A vast improvement!

My remaining kitchen cupboard looked like this...

Before:

• Lunch making supplies, drink syrups and breakfast syrup on the bottom shelf was working for us and was left pretty much alone. 
• The snacks were moved to the pantry. 
• Can you believe that there were still breast pump pieces on that top shelf??? It's been almost 2 years since they've seen any action!

Here is what this cupboard looks like now:

After:

I'm still in the market for a tray that fits beneath the toaster yet also fits my cupboard parameters... Tricky! Love the idea, though, as it will keep crumbs from trickling everywhere! (No matter how much I shake the thing, they don't all come out!) I think a more compact toaster is in order, as long as it still has 4 slots...

On the top shelf, I've grouped together herbal teas (rarely used) and our novelty/nostalgia mugs. The front two quite humorously state "Queen of Everything" and "King of What's Left."  We love them because they were a gift from my sister but also because they fit a can of pop with ice perfectly (we use mugs to hide drink contents from mooching vultures children).

I am most excited to point out my "hot drink zone!"

We're not coffee drinkers but we definitely enjoy a mug of hot chocolate or hot apple cider on a cold day!

Using a cake pan and plastic containers that I had put in my "Donate" box, I grouped together hot chocolate and apple cider packets, as well as mulling spices and marshmallows that I decanted into a canning jar.

I got the idea for this station from the following pictures (click on them to go to the original post):

Such amazing ideas out there!

I've linked this at: