Managing My Kitchen

Welcome to my kitchen. Today I will walk you through how my kitchen runs. Or at least how it is supposed to. Some of these are tips we have done for years, some are in the testing phase. Managing a home is an ever changing process. I hope you can use some of my ideas in your home.

                                                                                                 This is the view from the Family Room. The front door is on the right. We currently keep our laundry center in here. I will explain this part in a later post. The buckets by the door are for our every day shoes. Most of us have one pair of sneakers here and a few pairs of boots that fit a few of the littles. 

                                                                              This is our table. I have the one chair double stacked for Ezra, Daddy slides in the office chair. He plans to build a big wooden table for us by fall.
In the back you can see my bulletin board ( see below) and my new to me desk. I keep lunch boxes, bibs, and hats and gloves in the drawers. The freezer sits next to the pantry door. Cooking utensils hang under the shelf above the freezer.. The freezer makes a great prep area, and is also used to dry the bigger dishes.

                                                                                             You can see a better view of the freezer here, it was a gift from a friend. And you can also see my little bitty sink.. In the back corner is the stove and cook table. It has the microwave and two crock pots. You can also spy the little pot rack Quinten put up for me. A simple 2x4 cut to size and nails hold up the pots and pans. Our warped walls make a perfect nook for the lids ;). The bathroom sets off the back, the family room and playroom to the left.

                                                                                   You can see into the family room from this doorway as well, and the stairs to the right, front door to the left. The bookshelf holds our scriptures and library books. The counter next to the fridge holds our dishes. The drawers have a few little gadgets, and  the cabinet holds the larger dishes we use often such as mixing bowls. The top of the counter has our knives, silverware, and dinner dishes

                                                                               

This is where we keep our dinner dishes. Its the easiest way to manage dishes for 11 people. ( I did notice the baby's bowl is missing from this pic) We wash and set the dishes here to dry, and this is where they live. Our new rule is the older children are responsible for washing their own dishes after dinner. The dishes person just washes the cooking dishes. 

                                                                                                  This is the menu part of the board.. The light yellow column is the days, purple is breakfast meals, golden is "dinner" meals and blue are lunches ( we eat the lighter meal in the evenings). The blue paper is a pocket for the meals not in use on the board. The purple pocket at the bottom is the behavior punch cards and the seating chart and Isaac's emergency numbers he made for scouts. There is also a box of crayons as a prize for the punch cards..

*Click images to see larger*

                                                                              Our day is broken up into the sections. Morning, Mid-day and Evening. Our Morning routine is make bed, get dressed etc..

                                     

Our chore wheel and rules are posted here, as well as any other items we need to have our attention drawn to.


This central board makes it easy for everyone to know what they need to be doing at all times. If there is ever a question, the board knows. 

So how does your kitchen run? If you blog it, I'd love to see your posts, come back and share your link!