Project Start: Pots and Pans Cabinet

We are currently residing in a house that sports an 1857ish kitchen...well, to be honest, the house is that old, so the kitchen is probably a *little* newer. It's boxed in between the basement stairs and the second floor stairs...so, unfortunately, there's not much we can do in this ancient kitchen without some serious renovation and mucho, mondo dinero.

Knowing this, there are some good things about it - I love the picture window that spans the backbone of the C-shape the kitchen creates - and the beautiful views I can look at while washing dishes. And....hmmm. Well, I think that may be about it. That and the Keurig that currently resides by said window, so it can share the view with me.

We have dealt with the kitchen and its awful layout (ignored it) for the last 10+ years (almost 11!). And the top star of that awful layout list is the cabinets - they are a disaster...weird spaces and pockets to shove things - ugly inside, not square and honestly, really hard to use. Aside from replacing the cabinets with custom ones, I would love to see some sliders in there to utilize the back spaces - the hard to reach spaces - a little better. I am hoping that little addition can come this year, since they are more expensive than we can afford right now...but for now, I am content with organizing the cabinets we have, just cleaning them up, making them organized for better use and freshening up the interior.

Here is my first tackle:
The pots and pans. We just got a new set for Christmas, so the old, mismatched "set" that really needs to go (read: Teflon flaking off into our food - bad, I know!) There are a few pieces I would like to save, so I need to make it so that it doesn't sound like Blue Man Group lives in our cabinets every time I need to retrieve a pan. Take enough out, but leave enough in.

The before: Ugliness at its best. Why they invented cabinet doors. Just LOOK at the contact paper. Really? Was that ever a good choice?! Looking forward to ripping that craptastic stuff out.

Mission:

• Keep only the pots we use, recycle the rest.
  
• Organize them into easily accessed, neat piles.
  
• Take off craptastic contact paper, replace with new.
  
• Find a way to organize lids.

No money. Very little time. Get Creative.

Here's to a more organized, simple and prettier kitchen...one cabinet at a time. Yay!