Kitchen Command Center

Once upon a time I worked full time in a marketing career. I lived by my planner and a little expanding file that carried everything else in life I needed to save money (coupons and gift cards), keep in touch with friends (addresses, note cards, stamps AND return address labels), be good at my job (know where I needed to be and jot down notes, and find those notes), check book, Post-it Notes and more. I was on top of it! Even when the first baby arrived, I modified it, but it continued to work.

Then We Moved

And I became a stay at home mom, with baby #2 on the way….. I didn’t need to carry a purse and a diaper bag. I wasn’t leaving the diaper bag at daycare. The system was modified again, but less important, I didn’t have as much stuff to keep track of in that planner. Throw in a phone that I now carried phone numbers in and could put my calendar on (that was the extent of its powers though). The planner and file were replaced with a pocket in the diaper bag where I stuffed my coupons and other non-baby items.

Time marched on…. Kids started having events and activities I needed to get them to…. And baby #3 was thrown in there….. Now there are three different schools, a part-time job, a blog and for some reason, these people seem to think I need to feed them dinner, Every. Single. Night!

One Big Calendar

For quite some time, a giant rotating calendar worked for us.

I had a paper one for far out events, but these two big ones on the side of the fridge worked. Everything was color coded. I put my grocery list together with the coupons needed for that shopping trip and clipped it to the fridge.  Anything else was either clipped to the fridge or popped into one of the little magnetic baskets next to it.  When one month was crossed off, I just switched the two and continued on.

Then came a new kitchen and my fridge now has beautiful cherry panels on either side of it.  The old dry erase boards had seen better days and, did I mention, the kids, husband and I now all have even more events to keep track of?  I needed to make something a bit nicer that would fit our family better.

I found several great tips and tutorials around the blogging world, experimented with a few printables out there but ultimately decided I needed to bit the bullet and just do the work myself.

Here’s what I did:

Using two giant frames (11×17, I think!), I printed my calendar on two standard 8.5×11 pieces of paper and taped them together before putting behind the glass.  I know it’s hard to see but I can’t seem to get pictures of them better than this, I’ve tried.  I did play around with color making it match my kitchen, but ultimately decided just to print black on white paper, we still color code by person and that makes the calendar colorful enough!

Since I started using a planner again, I need more space for day to day events. I made my week start on Monday with the weekend being a combo at the end (matches the way my planner lays out).  To make the boxes as big as possible, each frame only has 3 weeks in it. This gives us 6 weeks at a glance.  I use command strips with Velcro so I can switch them. But, I just leave them in place. When a week has been crossed out, I just erase it and write in the dates for the next. We all read it in a rotating pattern (ie we are used to seeing next month just above where ever we are today).

It really does fill up, see…

I also added two matching frames (8.5×11) to the right.  The top one is for notes and my to-do list.  The bottom one is the kids’ chore chart.

A few command hooks and some little galvanized buckets and our kitchen command center is good to go:

There are so many days where I am happy if I’ve checked the calendar and accomplished everything on it.  When the mail gets sorted too, then the day gets crossed off as successful in my book (or wall calendar that is!).

Tip:

Click-able thin dry erase markers make color coding our family’s events so much easier.  Everyone has their own color and black is for everyone or marking the date.  And we use a small foam paint brush instead of a specific dry erase eraser.  Fits in the bucket nicely with the pens. AND I don’t get mad when a certain little boy takes off with it. I can always find extras in my house.

 What works to keep your family’s events organized?

Here are a few other posts about organizing you might like:

• Heather’s Laundry Room made great use of a small space
• My Wall Mounted Mail Sorter helps contain the paper clutter as it comes into the house
• Our Farmhouse Mudroom Cabinets made great use of storage in a small space