We hope that you have been inspired by our organizational posts and implementing some of them into your life. We believe that an organized home brings peace into your home and life. Clutter is an enemy to peace. Laurie Buchanan said, “Clearing clutter – be it physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual – brings about ease and inspires a sense of peace, calm and tranquility.” There is no way you can feel peaceful in your home if, as you sit down you see a pile of stuff that you need to take care of or you can’t find the mustard and you know it’s somewhere in the fridge. A disorganized space sucks the energy and happiness out of our lives, it robs us of joy.
When was the last time you took a good look at the refrigerator? Is there something scary growing in the back of the fridge? Are you afraid to open a container to see what actually is inside? We hate to be wasteful and especially hate to waste food. To us it is like flushing $$ down the drain! Well, we have a fix for that! Lets clean and organize the fridge in 5 simple steps.
1- Purge
2- Clean
3- Assess
4- Purchase
5- Restock
Step 1 – PURGE
Take a look at our refrigerators, they could definitely use a little more organization. We first took out everything from the fridge, tossed expired sauces and dressings and any leftovers that were questionable. Who is going to use that expired dressing anyway?
Step – 2 CLEAN
Take out all the drawers, wash the bins and shelves and don’t forget the walls and doors too.
Look what I found under my bottom drawer? A package of sliced cheese with one dried out piece of cheese in it. YUCK!
Step – 3 ASSESS
Now that you’ve purged expired items, look at what is left. What do you need to keep them organized in your fridge? Would bins or baskets help keep certain items contained? All of the items pictured here we picked up at Dollar Tree. It doesn’t need to be expensive to stay organized.
Step – 4 PURCHASE
Purchasing a few items that will help keep your fridge organized is money well spent! We found most of our containers at Dollar Tree, can’t beat that. We do have a couple of more expensive items like our lettuce keeper which if from Tupperware, but we love that it really prolongs the time the lettuce keeps fresh in the refrigerator.
Step – 5 RESTOCK
Now for the fun part, arranging and restocking the fridge. Sort your items and arrange in the purchased containers. We arranged our fridge into zones, we put like items together. For instance, we have an area for sandwich fixin’s, sweet sauces, ethnic sauces, beverages and leftovers. Keeping like items together will make it easier to find what you are looking for. We also chose to label these areas, which makes it easy for anyone to put items away.
One of my favorite organizing containers I found was this sliding egg drawer at Walmart. It mounts directly underneath the shelf. I purchased this for my fridge, which is a counter depth fridge and it didn’t work because my shelves are not quite as deep as a standard fridge. It did work great for Steph’s! I’m a little jealous about this. I had to just store my eggs in a plastic bin. It works great, but I loved the idea of a sliding drawer. By the way, the drawer can be easily removed and set on the counter too.
We corralled all of Steph’s yogurt into a clear bin that has 3 sections. Now the kids can easily grab a Gogurt by themselves.
Both of our family eat a lot or produce. We generally by it in big bags from Sam’s Club, but the bags don’t always stay fresh. We purchased containers for our lettuce, broccoli, kale and slaw. It also helped greatly in keeping the fridge looking neat and orderly.
One of the most challenging areas to keep organized in my fridge was the large lower drawer. It had one moveable divider, but it never stayed in one place and was constantly sliding around. Nothing ever stayed organized in that drawer. I solved this problem with 4 rectangular containers I found at Dollar Tree. With these I can organize the different cheeses and I can keep luncheon meat directly in front of them. I still use the divider that came with my fridge to separate other veggies I keep in this drawer.
These containers are really handy that I use in my lower drawer. They have a little handle on the front which makes it easy to grab out of the fridge while I am cooking. They are not only for refrigerators though, stay tuned and see how we used them in the garage!
Notice that we have labeled the different zones or areas in the fridge. Not only does this make it easy to find what you are looking for, but it really helps to get items back to the same location. We used our Silhouette machine to simply cut vinyl lettering. For containers that will be going in the dishwasher we used the Brother label machine. These labels stay on even with repeated washing, yet can be peeled off when desired.
Take a look at our freezers before. We both have lower drawer freezers and they can be challenging to keep organized. I knew that we needed to have items stored vertically in order to find items quickly.
We measured our freezer sections and set out to find containers that would fill the space, as well as be great organizers. For Steph’s freezer we used these 2 containers. The one on the left is from Dollar Tree and the basket on the right is from Target.
Steph has one divider in her lower drawer that she was already using. Here we placed all of her vegetables vertically so she can see exactly what she has. On the right of the lower drawer we placed the 2 Dollar Tree bins. Here we were able to organize all of the meat vertically as well.
In the upper drawer we placed 3 plastic baskets from target. Here we have sorted all of the frozen fruit for smoothies as well as juice and popsicles.
The challenge with my freezer is that the divider didn’t go all the way to the bottom of the basket and I couldn’t keep food organized. Also my fridge is counter depth and I had trouble finding containers that would fill the space and fit properly.
After much searching I found these containers in the bath section at Target. They fit perfectly in the bottom basket of the freezer. I removed the plastic tray from the bottom as well as the divider and now I have 4 sections I can now organize.
For the top drawer in the freezer I added 2 containers from Dollar Tree. They hold the popsicles as well as frozen avocados. Next to them I keep my bread items. We keep our bread in the freezer. We don’t use it often and it would get moldy before we would use it. This way it stays fresh.
In the lower drawer I have now organized my meats, veggies and fruits all vertically. I love it! It’s so easy to see what I have now!
We know that keeping a side by side refrigerator organized can be challenging! Since Stephanie and I don’t own a fridge like that we thought we would share some great organizational tips from other bloggers out there.
We love how organized this fridge is from Jessica Bruno at FourGenerationsOneRoof. The rolling can storage for soda is brilliant! If soda storage is a challenge for you give Jessica’s idea a try.
Check out this beautiful freezer organization from Jen at iheartorganizing. We love the labeled clear containers for organizing everything from breakfast items to meat and potatoes.
Need extra space, add a 3 drawer container. This cleaver container stores snacks for the kiddos, such a cleaver idea from Pinning with a Purpose.
Do you need to use every inch of storage space in your fridge? This clever pouch ideas from Pauline at A Dose of Simple is a brilliant use of space!
What kind of fridge do you have? How do you keep it organized? We would love to hear from you!
Thanks for stopping by! We hope that you have found some inspiration to organize your refrigerator. Please PIN IT and SHARE with someone you know who may find this post helpful. As always here at Sunny Side Design, we hope to bring your home to the Sunny Side of the Street! Happy Organizing!
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This looks amazing! I am feeling very inspired to organize our fridge and freezer now. I can’t believe I never thought to buy extra storage bins but it’s such a good idea! Also, I love how you described the effect that disorder/order has on us. I have definitely been feeling that decluttering lifts a weight off my shoulders!
Thanks Heather! Right? It’s crazy how living without a bit of order can effect how we feel. Having the fridge and freezer organized have definitely helped take some weight off my shoulders as well! Overall it just makes me feel good to look inside and know where things should be. (And I say “should be” because even though things are labeled, we must have some illiterate people living in our home 😂 I still find things in random places every now and again, but the order has helped tremendously!)