Recently we worked on Hilary’s pots and pans cupboards. It quickly became apparent that we need to find a way to make more room, since very little was going to friends, garage sale, or other cupboards. So I opened a side cabinet, and a top drawer and emptied these.


It turned out that Hilary had a shelf and a half full of paper plates, napkins, etc for block parties. A friend down the street is actually in charge of such things, and has a place to keep the paper ware. So we bundled them all up to return to her. Hillary can borrow what she needs as she needs it. This freed up a lot of space. The drawer was filled with junk that we were able to send to other locations or throw away. Between the two, we made enough room for all her pots and pans, with additional space for those still in the dishwasher!

Here are some comments from Hilary:

First, we took a tour through my house and she pointed out small, practical ways that I could implement getting years of disorganization under control. She gave advice like, "think about what you would like to use this space for". She gave me tips on what to tackle first (the not-so-bad areas), and said that the kids would be more train-able if they saw how things could be! Then we did a hands-on project together -- one kitchen cabinet. She had me get a bin and label it "FOR SALE". We took everything out of the cabinet together, then put it back in considering what we actually used and what was no longer useful. She had good practical suggestions and was really easy to work with. She made a project that would have been horrible by myself actually a lot of fun. I look forward to working with Lucy on lots more de-cluttering projects.