Farmhouse Style Organizing Plus a Before and After

Farmhouse Style Organizing

It happens to me every year. I take down the Christmas decorations and breathe a sigh of relief. Even though I kept it very simple this year, I still love the feeling of a decluttered house. I’ve been on a simplifying mission for the last year.

If you’re like me, then organizing starts with clearing out unused items. We all love pretty houses. But the reality is that we have stuff that isn’t so pretty, like mugs that certain someones won’t get rid of. Anyway, you know what I mean.

Even though I aspire to a cozy minimalist type of home, there are still essentials to keep. Of course, I also want them to be stored in farmhouse style! You know, magazine worthy. Not too much to ask, right?

So with that in mind, I did what any house junky would do and peeked into other people’s houses, through their blogs (and Pinterest) of course. Now I have some great organizing ideas, with a farmhouse flair.

Kitchen

I’m concentrating heavily on our kitchen. We’ve spruced it up a bit over the years. But it still has old cabinets and seven foot ceilings. Instead of ripping down walls and the ceiling, or maybe that’s before we rip them down, I’m going to make it work!

In the pantry I’m clearing out any food that we don’t use on a regular basis. It can be donated, or located in our longer term storage closet.

I’m using jars, and baskets to give it the farmhouse vibe. It’s a work in progress, so I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, Farmhouse On Boone has a great post on organizing a pantry with Mason jars. But wait…

Dishes, pitchers, and platters, oh my! Where do they all go in a dated, cottage kitchen?

I brought in a small cabinet to hold mixing bowls, and all of our cast iron pans (we have many!).

A thrifted bookshelf would also work wonders. Open shelving usually drives me a little nuts because it can look cluttered.

But if you use crates, baskets, and jars, to house the unsightly stuff, it will look intentional and styled.

Add a collection of pretty, farmhouse cake plates and dishes for all to admire. It’s best to keep with one or two colors for a clean look. You’ll get compliments, trust me!

Cookbooks are another plentiful possession around here. I organized them in some wooden crates and store them under my buffet in the dining room. They were just falling and stacked every which way. This is a real improvement!

Living Room

The best thing to do in the living room is remove all the crap! Maybe you’re an expert at this, or maybe this is tough love.

Our living room is small and has one, odd shaped closet in it. My tolerance for stacked up nonsense in here is pretty low.

In my organizing fervor, I just moved our up-cycled mail cart in here and styled it all cottagey, farmhousey. But I did include some closed storage boxes and baskets so that there weren’t too many things on display.

I’m not a minimalist in the pure sense of the word. However, I’ve lived in a small space for over a decade! I’ve found that editing the clutter is very important for me to feel relaxed and comfortable.

Everyone has a different tolerance for clutter. Rob (my husband’s) tolerance is higher than mine for sure. Thankfully he does see the value of getting rid of items we’re not using.

Sometimes we donate them and sometimes we sell them on Ebay, Craigslist, or have a garage sale. I’ve even had a couple of Flea market booths.

My point is, if you’re reluctant to part with things because you paid money for them, it might be a little easier if you’re getting some of that money back!

Before and After

So now onto the before and after. Like I said before, we have an older kitchen. We have to squeeze every bit of storage out of it that we can.

With Rob and I both loving to cook and our son going to Culinary school, our poor, aged kitchen sees a lot of action.

We added these shelves about a year ago and I thought I wanted a natural wood finish with the black brackets. Turns out it’s ugly in a north facing kitchen with low ceilings, and certainly not photogenic!

So out came the Kilz chalk paint and a whitewash was the answer.