I Can See Clearly Now

The kitchen looks
so very much better!

I just had to show you.
I was not going to go
to bed tonight until
I got those counter tops done.
So let's look together
at the progress made today:

If you will recall, things looked bad this morning.

This was the island.
I'm not even going to think about why there was
a roll of toilet paper on there---or a pair of my son's socks.
Here's the island now:


You can also see the other area
behind it where the cook top is.
Oh that I could keep that island clear.
At one point, not too long after we moved into this house
and I realized that this island is a clutter magnet,
I had this big hot pink sign that stood up
with a message warning people not to deposit stuff there.
I wonder what I did with that sign....

I don't know if you noticed in that above area
the change in the space where the phone
and answering machine live over there by the cook top.
This morning it looked like this:

Tonight it looked like this:


I brought in another basket and actually added a function
to this space. Now the bills go there to hang out with each
other until they get paid.

The sink area was cluttered this morning:


Even the little corner over there by the
appliance garage was junked up:


Doesn't it look better now?


This is something I have done so many times
and I know I will have to do it againd...and again...
and again... and if I stay on top of it, it can be something
done in five minutes each day rather than letting it get to
the sad state it was in today.
It really does make a difference
in the atmosphere of that room.
The kitchen is the heart of the home.
I spend most of my time there, either cooking or
cleaning up or feeding kids or
sitting at the kitchen table doing
school work or reading aloud to them.
It's going to feel a lot better tomorrow
to have things neat and tidy.

Bonus points to me today
for taking baby steps towards
the death of clutter!

I may tackle the butler's pantry tomorrow.
It's bad.
(Michael Jackson wrote a song about it.)
I thought about snapping a picture of it tonight
when I was taking these "after" pictures,
but it was too scary.