We are lucky to have a large kitchen. It is big enough that we don’t need to use all the cabinets for kitchen related stuff.  We actually use the whole set of cabinets on the right side to house tools, paint, wire and every other conceivable item needed during a house renovation. Plates and cups out.  Putty and caulk in.

On the day we moved in, the kitchen was clean and tidy – completely free of renovation mess…

Not so much after a year of renovation.

Both the island and countertops are cluttered with power tools, paint and plugs…

Although the countertop is not a pretty sight, there’s worse to be found in the cabinets and drawers.  This is the result of trying to quickly tidy away the countertops to make things seem tidy when we have guests around.  Out of sight, out of mind. You’ll notice that the bottom shelf of the cabinets is more densely packed with renovation goodies than the upper shelves – that’s because at 5 ft 1″, I cannot reach beyond the second shelf.  Cue sound effect – wop wop.

It was high time that we did something about this mess.  Apart from the visual clutter, the tools lacked organization.  I’d lost count of the numerous times we’d tried to find a tape measure, a flat head screwdriver or the box of sheetrock screws – tools we *knew* we had. Somewhere. Frust-rat-ing.

So we had to make mess to tidy mess. Everything came out of the cabinets and drawers and were organized into related piles. 

Who knew we had three tubes of liquid nails, 10 rolls of electrical tape and 15 replacement blades for the box knife?   Not only did we find the elusive tape measure, we found four.  Flat head screwdriver?  No problem, we have multiple in various sizes. Sand paper in every conceivable grit size. It was like going shopping, but for free!

 Each drawer or cabinet was designated a theme, so we now know where to go to find stuff.  We have a caulk drawer…

and a drawer that houses painting and tile related accessories…

The paint now lives in the cabinet below – it is great to know exactly where all our sprays and paints samples are, along with the roller brushes and trays.

We even have a drawer for screws. That tupperware container on the left has all the odd assortments of screws, nuts, bolts and washers we came across.  Now if we need one or two specific size screws, we can look here first without having to go buy a pack of 1000 at the DIY store.

The upper cabinets look so much better. A place for everything – everything in its place.  I’m hoping that this will make the renovation madness around here much more efficient.

So, our kitchen is back to its clean and tidy state.  For now.

We’ve put together a tool bag of the items which are used most frequently – tape measure, screw drivers, level, extension cord, hammer, chisels, box knife, stud finder, and so on.  This portable tool chest can be carried around the house and be used for whatever project we’re working on that day. 

Hopefully, that’ll mean that we’ll be less likely to leave tools lying around the house, so we won’t be in the situation of not being able to find four tape measures.  Yeah. A girl can hope, right?  What tips or tricks do you use in your house to keep your tools organized?  Do you store your tools in the house like we do, or are they relegated to the garage?  Ughh, the garage – now there’s another organization project on our to-do list…

The storm that blew in over North Carolina dumped about 8-10 inches of snow on us this weekend. With temperatures below freezing since Friday, we haven’t ventured much outside.  I opened the doors long enough to snap a few photos.

Here’s the view from our back deck – check out the 9 inches of snow on the table:

Here’s the view from our front porch:

Our landscape lights should look something like this:

They look pretty cool lighting up the snow!

Did you get hit by the snowstorm this weekend? Anyone brave enough to go outside and build a snowman or make a snow angel?