Thursday, May 26, 2011

O-O the Wells Fargo Wagon Brought Me Thumthin' Thpecial!

We just watched The Music Man (remake with Matthew Broderick) again the other night, so this song has been going through my head for days... just waiting for my curtain rods to arrive!  They arrived today - a day earlier than expected.  I think maybe the UPS driver wanted to get out of Tornado Alley really fast!  They came from Florida, through Alabama, Missouri and Kansas to Commerce City, Colorado before they were delivered.

So, my baking pan cabinet is all reorganized and I'm pretty happy with it!  All the pans are in one place now.  Though I haven't actually tried using any of the pans yet to see if it is easy enough to access what I need.


Here's a photo that shows the curtain rods installed vertically, supporting the pans that are on edge:




There are two rods between each section.  I put items that I use the most on the inside divided areas; things used least against the sides of the cabinet.  However, I have all the baking pans in one place now - excluding cake pans, which I think will replace the muffin pans that were in The Pantry... but I'm still working on The Pantry, so we'll see.  


I'm excited because now when I look at my special bread baking pans, mini bundt cake pans and donut pan, maybe I'll feel more like baking something in them.  Not that I haven't wanted to, but out of sight - out of mind... I hadn't done any baking with them.


Anyway, the top shelf of The Pantry was freed up (mostly) with the removal of the muffin pans.  So I moved some things around, and got rid of a small food processor that I think I only used once.  It was "too complicated" to deal with it (I have the manual somewhere, but need to find it), so it was just taking up space.


We compromised on the George Forman grill - moved it to the cupboard above the fridge.  I have a hard time reaching it there, but Phil can reach it and he usually likes to be in charge of it, anyway.  However, the only way he'd let me move it there was if I moved the air popper to that cupboard, too.  So, since we really mostly only use the air popper at Christmas time for caramel corn, I agreed to move it.  




Yesterday I found this divided rack for $1.99 at the Goodwill.  Wasn't sure I'd need it for anything, but it worked pretty well for the roasting pan and roasting racks - and a very heavy cast iron gingerbread house pan.  Also a wooden tray that I never use, so we'll see how long it stays there.  It'll be the first thing to go as soon as I find something else that can fit in the rack.  Problem is that the cabinet is above the fridge, so have to put things there that we don't use too often, or it isn't very convenient to have things there.  This photo shows half the cabinet.  The other side has the Forman grill and air popper.



Well, then I was inspired to work on The Pantry.   I moved my cake decorating stuff from The Cove into the top shelf of The Pantry. 

 

I still have to deal with the cookbooks and notebooks that I keep some recipes in that I use often.  But, that left the cookie cutters still in The Cove.  They were in 4 plastic baskets, somewhat sorted by theme plastic zipper storage bags (quart & gallon).  So I dragged them out and, once I figured what I was up against (a LOT of cookie cutters for someone who really rarely ever made cutout cookies!), I Googled to find ways to organize them.  


I opted to try using over-the-door shoe organizer bags... white with clear plastic - EXPANDABLE - pockets.  K-Mart had an ad for these that starts this coming Sunday, showing they'd be on sale for $8.99 each.  So, I went to check them out and found out they were on sale for $8.04 this week!  So, I bought three... two for The Pantry, and one for my closet when I get motivated to get it organized.


Phil had to pound hooks into the doors, though, because the doors wouldn't close with the over-the-door hooks that came with the shoe bags.  On the left side, I put cookie cutters organized by season and/or holiday, and where those fell on the calendar.  



For example, February/Valentine's Day is toward the top of the sorter, and Thanksgiving is toward the bottom.  I was at a loss as to where to put a cookie cutter which we're not sure if it is a coffee canister (vertical) or Iowa (horizontal).  I stuck it in with a church cookie cutter because, years ago when I did the RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa), there was a "small church" town that was one of the stops on one of the day's rides.  In between are categories such as, "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and "Graduation".  Also one for summer, which includes a turtle and an ice cream cone for lack of any other idea where to include them.


On the right side, I put my very large assortments of "western" and "Christmas" cookie cutters.  








At first I was kind of disappointed because I have a round plastic container that has a lot of mini Christmas cutters in it.  I couldn't get it to fit into the pocket that I tried the first time.  But, it looked like my snowflake boxed sets had a larger pocket, so I switched them around and the round container fit in the pocket!  So, now I don't need to try to figure out where to put that one odd cookie cutter set.  

Everything fit into the pockets - and I think I even have room for more cutters!  I know... that is a pretty crazy thought.  But, I love this way of storing them... I can pretty much see what I have at a glance.  I'm really happy with the shoe bag idea!


So... that leaves some empty space in The Cove.  Also still in The Cove are all my cookie/cake sprinkles and cupcake paper filler things.  I found a clear canister at a thrift shop - and saw more of them (and kind of pricey) at Wal-Mart some time ago; but if I could find more, I'd like to get some for my sprinkles to sort them... or something.  Right now they are in baskets - and I could leave them like that.  They aren't hard to deal with; but I'll see how much room I end up with in The Pantry.


I have some really cool slide out wire baskets at the bottom of The Pantry, so those will need to be sorted next.  



Maybe my sprinkles and papers will end up in one of those. And I have to figure out where I'll keep my large tube that houses my rolling pin. And then I need to deal with cookbooks...


c@


1 comment:

  1. Wow, Cat...You are SO organized! I LOVE the cookie cutter hanger. You could market that!

    ReplyDelete