Buy Christmast Equipment: 52 Weeks of Organizing - Week 2

Friday, January 14, 2011

52 Weeks of Organizing - Week 2 - Cleaning Our Refrigerator

This week as part of the Org Junkie's 52 Weeks of Organizing, I focused on cleaning and organizing our refrigerator, a task that I had hoped to accomplish over our holiday break but did not get done. I'm not quite sure how, but I convinced my husband to help me so with his help we cleaned our main refrigerator, the extra refrigerator in the basement, and our stand-up freezer. Really, is there anything sexier than a guy cleaning the refrigerator? I almost took a picture of my husband on his hands and knees cleaning under the fridge but I managed to restrain myself.

Our refrigerator really needed cleaned and organized, I felt a bit defeated every time I opened the fridge.

While we were cleaning out the fridge, I had an epiphany. We have two produce drawers - one much bigger than the other. For the 10 years we've had this fridge, we've been jamming all the vegetables into the smaller drawer - we always have more vegetables than fruit. Rather than trying to stuff all the vegetables into the smaller drawer - I switched the drawers. Now, the vegetables are in the bigger drawer! It only took me 10 years to figure that out! It truly made me wonder how many other small changes could be made in our home to make our day-to-day lives more convenient.

A clean fridge is a beautiful thing!

Although the side looks just as packed as before, I did check all of the dates and throw out a few things that were out of date. I also deep-cleaned all the pull-out shelves.

Yes, one of our refrigerator drawers is held together with duck tape. Sigh.

I'm so happy about organizing the stand freezer as well. We organized everything into boxes by type of food: Pork, Beef, Chicken and Potatoes, and Vegetables. My husband gets the incredibly sturdy beer boxes we used from work - they are like book boxes and last forever. Now I know what's in the freezer and where it's located.