If you're following Clean Mama's Spring Cleaning event, you know that this week's spring cleaning is the kitchen, and I'm ready for it. I'm beginning with organizing, and cleaning a slightly unusual closet of sorts that is in my kitchen. (It is the door on the left in this photo. The door on the right is our pantry.)
I say slightly unusual because the reason this closet exists is that there is a light switch on the wall, and on the floor of this closet there is a large trap door. It opens upward, and latches on the back wall of the closet to expose a ladder that takes you down to a small cement floored basement room that houses my furnace and water heater.*
*Full disclosure; I have never actually been down the ladder into the small cement floored room. The ladder angle seems steep, and I am better than fine with Ralph being the brave soul to go down that ladder to change the furnace filter, and the battery in the smoke detector down there. I am happy to simply hit the light switch and a light in the basement room comes on for him.
Anyway.
Because our home is on the cozy small side, storage is at a commodity and I wanted to make the most of this closet space, however, on rare occasions someone needs to be able to go down to that little basement room. (Like when you realize that danged chirping is coming from the smoke detector battery down there)I realized I needed storage that wasn't a full on production to remove as needed, without ending up with a tall stack of rubbermade tubs or boxes in the kitchen.(I realized all of this after two separate occasions where Ralph needed to suddenly go down to the basement room, and it took more than a few minutes to empty the closet for him to gain access.)
Thinking on this dilemma for a short while, it hit me. I knew exactly what would work, and I had a good idea of which one of my junk friends might have what I needed. I reached out to my friend (she has a fantastic junk inventory built up) and asked her if she might have rolling bakers rack. (Like bakeries use.)
She did!
I bought it and it has been a game changer. Not only does it hold a good amount of baking, cooking, and entertaining inventory, it moves easily, and I can see everything at a glance. It's like it was meant to be. Do you have any clever storage hacks you have come up with? I love it when stuff like this comes together!
So, today I am wheeling it out of the closet and reorganizing it, as, like with most of my storage areas, things slowly but surely have gotten out of control. I am also evaluating what I still use and what might need to be donated or given away.
As for the rest of this closet, it houses my step ladder, recyclable container and garbage tub to the left of the baker's rack, and my aprons are hung along the back on nails that were there when we got the house. A Shelf high above everything else holds my hardly ever used (but always good to know I have) giant chafing dishes. Efficient, and easy to spot what all I need, as well as being super accessible for those rare times we need to get into that basement room.
I'll edit this post after I complete this spring cleaning task....happy Monday, my friends!
EDITED TO ADD: Here is my "after" shot of my rolling bakers rack. All clean and organized, as well as the closet being swept and vacuumed out......
