Kitchen Makeover: Organization Tips on a Budget

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Duck Brand. All opinions are 100% mine.

We’ve lived in this house for about 3 years now. But just finally closed on the sale and made it official a couple months ago. {Yayayayayaya!} So, I’m starting to work on some projects I’d kind of put off for awhile, and get this place whipped into shape. We entertain a lot, so the big projects are the kitchen and living room. The kitchen is right off the patio where the pool is – so it’s the most “seen” room when people visit, since that sliding glass door is our usual entrance – I figured it’s the first place to start.

The kitchen has got good “bones,” if you know what I mean – nice cabinets and appliances, a great kitchen island, and awesome tile.  Everything is very neutral colored, so I decided to decorate based on my favorite thing in the kitchen – my red KitchenAid mixer. I’m working on a couple of pieces of wall art, and have some shopping to do – but first job is organizing cupboards and drawers.

First step was emptying out drawers. Next step? This super pretty Duck® Brand shelf liner. It’s not an adhesive liner, so you don’t have to worry about a mess or any damage when you want to remove it or change styles. It’s machine washable, which is really cool. And even though it’s not adhesive – it still “sticks” when you put it down. Like, just stays in place really well.

There are like a million styles and designs – check ’em out here: Duck Brand’s Shelf Liner. You just measure, cut, and place in the drawer or on a shelf. And you know what’s crazy? The patterns match up awesomely – this is two pieces of shelf liner next to each other. You can barely see the difference in the pattern – and I did NOT try at all to match them. Cool, right?

Doesn’t that look pretty? LOVE! But, I know some of you are thinking… Why use shelf liner at all? What’s the point? Glad you asked :) Duck® Brand has lots of different types of shelf liners, giving you a zillion reasons to use them:

• Use the Smooth Top Easy Liner to line your cupboards – it gives a little extra cushion for your breakable glassware, wipes clean super easily, and just looks cool.
• Super Grip Easy Liner is waterproof – perfect in the bathroom. Line shelves, bottoms of bins, or insides of cupboards and drawers. Since these are washable {and affordable enough to just replace regularly if you want} it makes it easy to keep things clean and mildew-free. And they just look cool.
• Original Easy Liner works awesome in drawers – it’s got a great non-slip texture to it which helps keep things in place. Great for lining a utensil drawer, so everything doesn’t get so jumbled each time you open and close it. And it just looks cool.

Did I mention it all just looks cool? :) Seriously though – I’m an organizing junkie. A clean, pretty, organized cupboard, drawer, closet, or shelf makes my OCD happy. And these fun prints are just that – happy. It’s so nice to see that bright pop of color or print when opening something up.

So – here’s the before and after. I’ll show more as I get to more cupboards and drawers, but I was so excited about this Duck® Brand shelf liner I had to share something right away! I had a jumbled up drawer in the kitchen – the “junk drawer” if you will – that I figured I’d tackle first. You can see it was just full of random stuff. Here’s what I did:

• Lined it with the Duck® Brand liner.
• Used a cheap-o pencil holder I found around the house to hold all of the loose packets of gravy, taco seasoning, au jus, etc.
• Bought a Chrome In-Drawer Spice Rack from Amazon, for under $15 bucks. It holds my spices and seasonings, little bottles of olive oil from O & Co, and at the very back {where you can’t see – sorry!} I have my pizza cutters.
• The non-slip texture helps my measuring cups and spoons stay in place too.
• Then I put the odds and ends away where they actually go, lol. Yes – that’s a toothbrush in there. I use it to clean grout. Put it with the cleaning gear. That package of clearance straws went in with the cups they’re used with. How do we always all end up with random catch-all drawers like this? Sheesh.

Now I can actually find things – and it looks so nice!

Here’s a full look at the “after” – nice, right? And it was super affordable! These rolls of shelf liner go a long way, and are so affordable. I used things from around the house – like the pencil case. Then the $15 bucks for the spice rack – which is totally worth it :) No more buying the same things over and over, because I don’t realize I already have them!

Stay tuned for more budget makeovers coming soon too – we’ve got a lot in the works :) And tell me – what’s your best tip for organizing or upgrading a kitchen on a budget? Leave a comment or link below – I love hearing your tips! And be sure to follow them on Facebook and Pinterest for more clever and creative inspiration and tips!