my kitchen cupboard shame

Nobody would describe me as the tidiest person in the world.  Not my best friends.  Not my boyfriend.  Certainly not my mother.  However even I was slightly appalled by the state of my kitchen and, in particular, my kitchen cupboard(s) this evening.  

As a rule, I think Friday evening should either be spent in a bar with a large glass of white wine or slumped in front of the TV with a takeaway but disgusted by my slovenly ways, I planned an intensive evening of housework.  Well, I planned to tidy up the kitchen a bit.

The problem with the kitchen is not just that it is quite small but that it is so ridiculously designed that cupboard space is at a premium.  That big cupboard on the right of the sink that looks like it would be a fantastic larder?  That's where the boiler is.  The cupboard under the sink that looks like it would be useful for storing cleaning products or large kitchen gadgets?  That's where the gas meter is.  All except one of the drawers is a fake, taunting me with the dream of extra storage space.  The day I discovered that the tops of the cupboards were flat enough to store lesser-used crockery was indeed one to celebrate.

All this means that I am left with one measly cupboard for all my food.  And it's a cupboard that's stupidly hard to access as it's over the sink.

At the start of this evening, it was looking a bit like this:

Although, I do sort of like the fact that the filter makes it look like a 1950's nightmare.

I'd pretty much just shoved in half-opened packets of pasta and biscuits in wherever I could find an inch and I was living in constant fear of that packet of cornflour on the top shelf toppling over and giving me an unwelcome flour-shower.

Some (*ahem*) time later, it looked like this:

Note how I put the biscuits out of the reach on the top shelf.

Also note how I have managed to double up on ALL my spices so I now have two jars of paprika, two jars of nutmeg, two jars of cinnamon, two jars of chilli flakes etc.  I think this is particularly impressive in the case of cinnamon which I neither like nor cook with so why I decided on two separate occasions to buy a new jar is beyond me.