Monthly Organizing Challenge: Under the Sink

Last week, I talked about wanting to create more interaction with all of you here on the blog. I hope you’ll sign up to follow me on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest! I’m here today with another fun way that we can all interact: A Monthly Organizing Challenge!

Each month, I plan to present a new challenge to organize a space in our homes. I’ll show you what I did in my own space and give you some ideas on how to get started in yours. Then, as you complete the challenge, we can share our results with one another. If you have an Instagram account, please share your monthly organizing photos using the hashtag #ocomonthlychallenge. You are also welcome to leave comments on each month’s post about what worked and didn’t work for you, and I encourage you to leave me some ideas on what spaces you’d like to see featured in upcoming months. So what do you say? Will you accept my challenge?
This month, I chose the area under the kitchen sink. This is one of the hardest places for me to keep organized. Here is a before shot of this space in our house.

It is cluttered with multiple open bottles of the same products, old products that might not even be usable anymore, and items that really don’t belong in this space.

To start this project, let’s remove everything from the space. 

Once it’s empty, wipe it down so it’s nice and clean. 

Then, go through your items and determine which of four categories each item belongs to: 

• return to the space
• return to a different space
• donate
• trash/recycle

When you’re finished dividing up the items, take the trash/recycle items to their designated containers right away. Feeling better already?

Let’s go back to the items remaining in the return to space category. If your space is like mine, you may need to consolidate like items. (I had three open bottles of dish soap and two open bottles of carpet spot cleaner.) 

Now that you have an idea of what needs to go back in the space, you can assess what types of storage containers are going to be most helpful. 

For this space, I decided on two major storage solutions. 

First, I hung a tension rod across the top half of the cabinet. This creates easy storage for spray bottles and keeps them up out of the way. If you have a lot of bottles, closet rod sockets are super easy to install and will prevent your tension rod from slipping.

I picked up my tension rod and the closet sockets at my local Meijer store with a 15% off coupon, spending just $5. (If you don’t have a Meijer near you, I’m sure you can find these items at Walmart or a home improvement store.)

Second, I moved a metal sliding drawer from our master bath cabinet. It doesn’t get utilized in that space and I think it will work much better under the kitchen sink. I used it to hold rags, dish soap, sponges, and a few products that can’t hang on the tension rod.

I also hung a simple command hook in the cabinet to hang the dish drying mat out of the way when it’s not in use.

When your storage containers are in place, return your keep items to the space. When you’ve got everything you want to keep put away, take the items that you determined belonged in a different space and put those away. 

I find it best to take care of these items last because, chances are, if I take a group of items into another room, I will get distracted organizing something in that room instead of finishing the project I started.

I showed off the space to my mister and he asked what I was going to do with all that open space? I said, “Nothing!”

So, now it’s your turn! I’m challenging you to organize the area under your sink over the next 30 days. 

I strongly encourage you to schedule the project into your calendar. If you don’t have time to complete it all at once, break it into parts and schedule each of those parts. It might only be 10 to 15 minutes here and there, but you have 30 days to get it finished!

Don’t be shy. Share your spaces on Instagram to encourage and motivate others! I can’t wait to see them!

What spaces do you find are most difficult to keep organized?

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