I’ve been meaning to downsize the kitchen for a while, but procrastination got the best of me. Last weekend, I spent a couple hours cleaning and organizing the kitchen and I made a lot of progress. Our next step is to count up all our stuff and try the 100 Thing Challenge with our shared items.
We donated a lot of items to the local SPCA thrift store and it’s awesome to see so much empty space in our kitchen cabinets!
It’s amazing how much kitchen stuff can accumulate over time. Especially, things like dishes, silverware, tupperware and other food storage items. Logan and I noticed that we use 1 to 2 pots or pans and a few dishes everyday. So why in the world did we have over a dozen plates, bowls and glasses?
About a month ago, we boxed up our china and silverware. We are storing the items at the ranch for now. Logan can’t bear the thought of donating our wedding china because it reminds him of our wedding day and the good intentions of family members. I think we should donate the china because someone should get full use out of the set. We are still using our some of our plates and wine glasses from our china set. But there is no way we will ever be entertaining 12 or more people in our tiny home. 
So I don’t know what will happen with the china set.
But the good news is, we have a lot of extra and empty space in the kitchen! I even got Logan to reduce the number of his “nifty” containers. Prior to the purge he owned about 20 small containers for camping adventures.
So RowdyReaders…have any of you downsized your kitchen?
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Great job! I’m starting to think that when you and Logan reach Portland I need to hire you to help me get a handle on my possessions.
I’m a whole lot leaner than I was but nowhere near where you are.
You are my hero.
I absolutely love what you have done! What a liberating feeling it must be to own only what you use. That’s a lot of work, but it looks fantastic. Thanks for sharing the updates with photos!
Ahhh thank you @chesapeake! I’m hoping we can downsize the kitchen even more. I’m not sure where to put all of the bulk food in our future tiny home.
You are simply amazing and brave for just downsizing like that! I tried to downsize my kitchen to 1 of everything for each person and ended up getting all the silverware back out because we’re lazy in my house… Good luck with your challenge!
If you figure that out, please let me know! I’m really into the Mormon idea of stockpiling and emergency preparedness, and I’ve been trying to reconcile my love of simplicity and tiny houses with that for a few months now. There has to be a way!
Yes. Here’s a minimalist kitchen that fits inside a 7L pressure cooker.
http://earlyretirementextreme.com/2007/12/the-minimalist-kitchen.html
That is awesome! Thanks for the tips.
On your wedding china, you might try keeping four place settings and donating the rest as an eight-place set. Then you get both space and memories.
It looks beautiful. I love the blue pottery bowl on the second shelf from the bottom.
I put aside two more cookbooks for donation. I’m also thinking of getting rid of some more kitchen things I don’t use. It would be tough to part with my mother’s popover pan, though …
I like DiAnne’s wedding china suggestion.
I know this is an old post but I came across it in research I am doing for a post I am working on about ‘extreme decluttering’. I only keep stuff in my kitchen that I use regularly, but have realised I use too much stuff! So I have started a fairly extreme purge – and I was pretty lean to start with. One of my traps is having extras for entertaining, but I have realised that if we have a big group over we will just ask someone to bring some plates. That wont be a big deal at all. Having said that, we won’t be donating our heirloom silver cutlery just yet … would give the in-laws kittens!
@Gypsy – cool! Good luck on decluttering the kitchen. It’s a big project, but worth it in the end.
My mom just sold her heirloom silver cutlery and is happy it’s gone. She said it was hard to let go, but was tired of it just sitting there collecting dust.
Keep me posted on your progress.