40 Bags in 40 Days - Planning and Day 1

So I recently came across this challenge: declutter your home by getting rid of 40 bags of stuff in 40 days. One bag a day. Sounds like no big deal right? They even have this great planner you can print out to help figure out those areas. Let me tell you - 40 is a lot! I spent about an hour yesterday planning out my 40 areas. The kids go through their stuff fairly often and clear out on their own so I didn't include anything in their rooms, or of my darling husband's stuff (it's practically against the law to get rid of anything that belongs to him...) so here's the plan:

The two lines with XXXX is when I'll be in Houston for doctor stuff with Baby Girl

I'm going to try to post a small bit with before and after pictures from each day, but they might end up being a few combined when I (eventually, more than likely) get behind. Just being honest.

So here's Day 1: I almost feel like I cheated on this because I only have three kitchen drawers and I keep them pretty straightened up because of a lack of space; but instead of calling it "cheating" I'm going to call it "easing in" to the process. Bonus: my house goal for this year is to tackle one room a year - give it a top to bottom cleaning and do any rearranging, redecorating, etc. that I want and this month is kitchens. Guess what's left? Drawers and Cabinets!

Here are the before and after pictures:

Baking supplies and tools (mostly)

Before: mixture of food stuff and tools; really cramped and difficult to get the drawer closed unless the funnels were juuuuuust right.

I recently got the pantry cleared out and rearranged so I was able to move the brown sugar, chocolate chips and crisco sticks to their new homes; I let go of three out of the six rubber spatulas and one set of mismatched measuring spoons I've been holding on to just because; I added a couple of kitchen utensils that get used too often to throw out, but not often enough to take up space in my main drawer of utensils.

Main utensils drawer

Before: lot of stuff I don't use; mostly just all tossed in and what I don't use eventually worked its way to the back. I'm really bad about leaving this drawer slightly cracked when I'm cooking on the counter top right above it so there were lots of crumbs and food particles in the silverware tray.

Moved a few things to the other drawer; took out all the silverware and washed that out; pulled the partition out further on the far right to fit smaller knives in there instead of stuck in the side and to allow for more frequently used things (aka: the ice cream scoop) to be front and center.

(side note - this is probably my favorite silverware divider that I've ever had. It fits everything perfectly, has an adjustable side tray on the right, and positioners to be able to help hold the different size forks and spoons where they need to be. Don't ask me where I got it because I don't remember.)

Towel Drawer

Before: kinda cluttered and crowded but still manageable

Got rid of the fire starter (that doesn't work anymore), some of the oven mitts (because I only use the two round ones) and some other stuff that you can't even see in the first picture because it's buried under the hot pads.

I barely got rid of one Target bag full of stuff, and some of the food stuff was just put somewhere else (where it should have been to start with) so I don't know if it counts or not, but hey - one day down, 39 to go!

Some trashed, some bagged for donation, some put away elsewhere!