Crazy Ideas that Just Might Work

Most of my readers know I love a challenge and today I’m sharing a few simple ways to remedy a few of them. We recently had our kitchen updated with granite countertops and new cabinets. I love our new look and this was part of a 5 day de-stress your mess challenge from Andrew Mellen on Facebook. We had to take everything out of the kitchen so it was the perfect time to get rid of clutter that wasn’t needed. My main challenge was to remove the clutter on the countertops and keep them neat and clean! While doing so I came up with some crazy ideas that just might work. http://themarthareview.com/our-kitchen-is-de-cluttered/

After the new kitchen was complete we put everything back in the cupboards that we didn’t toss. Having a small kitchen is a challenge for storing things and I use every inch of space. We have silicone pan covers that were always hanging on the wall but I wanted to have a clean look so they had to be moved. But where to?? I didn’t have extra cabinet space to lay them in so I came up with the next best thing. I had an over the door towel holder hook that I put over the top cabinet so the hook part was inside. Our new cabinets are 6″ taller than the original ones and we can’t reach the top so now that I had the hook up there, my challenge was to figure out the next step. So me being persistent about coming up with a plan went out to my sewing supplies for a solution. I made a long loop of shade cord and attached that over the top hook. Then I dug through our odds and ends and found a clip to hang the silicone pan covers on and snapped it over the cord. Now I have a place to store them out of sight but easy to reach!

My next challenge was coming up with a solution to keep the door handles from hitting the cabinets when opened. Our original handles were just a single round knob and this wasn’t an issue. So once again, I put my thinking cap on and come up with the idea to slide some sort of tubing over the top of the handles that hit the cabinet next to them. This was something I couldn’t find hanging around our garage so we ran to Lowes and found the perfect sized vinyl tubing and I cut it the length of the handle from the top to the bracket. It’s perfect when the cupboards are open they don’t scratch the other cabinets or wall!

Most of the cabinets only needed the tubing on one handle but the cabinet under the sink and the corner one next to it hit when each opened. The sink side hit the handle and the corner side hit the sink cabinet but but adding the vinyl tubing the problem was solved.

My last problem I solved may have you laughing but I told you I need to utilize every inch of space. I hung a spring tension rod a few inches from the ceiling in the pantry and I use to store pans that I don’t use often up there. When we de-cluttered I found space elsewhere for them but left the rod up. When it was time to de-clutter and reorganize the pantry with help from Lia I came up a new idea for this! My latest invention was to take a hook and attach it over the hook on the rod. I just happened to find a vinyl cable with loops on each end and I attached them over the hook. Do you see where this is going yet? I took yet another hook, looped it over the cable and used that to store my bags of crackers! Problem solved once again!

This is a blog I wrote about our over loaded pantry and you’ll see how I came up with another idea….put a piece of plywood over the wire shelves to keep things from falling through them! I also came up with some ideas to use our old refrigerator drawers and cabinet drawers from storage. Lia was a big help in this project! http://themarthareview.com/over-loaded-pantry/

So my crazy ideas that just might work, worked out great! I’m always thinking of ways to reuse what I have or come up with new ideas to reduce clutter. If you want to see another crazy idea that worked, check out my kitchen utensil organizer I made from a cardboard box! http://themarthareview.com/kitchen-utensil-organizer/