a little delightful fridge makeover + giveaway!

This post is brought to you by Howards Storage World

It's Spring! And like most people after a long cold cozy winter, I'm starting to get itchy to get into some spring cleaning!
First stop in our house was the fridge. We have never really felt this fridge worked well for us, but it fits in the fridge recess in our kitchen which is an odd size so we just had to go with it. 

As you can see, I have tried to keep it organised, using baskets and such to help corral similar items. We also like to chop up and store veggies in containers ready to be used which saves us time and also keeps them fresher for longer. 
But we were forever running out of space and struggling to fit everything in! 
This photo was taken a couple of days before a shop, so it's not as full as it usually is. I shop fortnightly for our family so I need our fridge to work efficiently and I need to use the space I have as best I can.   I will also admit that with a new baby in the house - our fridge was looking very messy and we were shoving stuff in there where it would fit!

Following Howards Storage World's philosophy of Stop, Sort, Solve, I stopped and took some time to think about what I needed from my fridge, what my issues were with it (like running out of room!) and that things got lost at the back because of the deep large shelves. This was proving a waste of food {and money!} when I would find an old bag of spinach or container of grape tomatoes behind everything else!
The Team at Howards Storage World came up with a plan for me, and some ideas to try in order to tackle the issues I was having with the lack of space and things getting lost. I was really excited to try their suggestions so I got onto it straight away.
The next step was to take everything out and sort it into groups {and while I was at it, go through everything and throw away anything that was out of date!} I sorted our food items into groups like sauces and pastes, condiments, breakfast items, dressings, dairy etc.
And then did a nice good clean of the fridge inside and out before putting everything back into their new spots.
And here is my fridge after it's makeover! Note it has a light now too?? Well our newly organised fridge motivated my hubby to finally replace the globe in it since it died nearly 2 years ago!!

I cannot believe how much more is fitting in here and how much easier it is to reach everything. This is a couple of days after a fortnightly shop, so we're pretty full and have most of what we need for the next week and a half, though we will top up fruit, veg and milk before I shop next. 
One of the suggestions from Howards was to place all my condiments and cooking sauces on the top shelf of my fridge instead of in the door as I had them before, freeing up the fridge door for drinks and bottles of water. 
So now they are all grouped in baskets on the top shelf. Labelled as well - can't get any better than that!

Although I thought it might be a bit of a waste of space to have all the baskets on this top shelf and room for nothing else, it is really working well for us! Not only is the fridge door now able to accommodate much more {most of these items lived in the fridge door!} but it means that at breakfast I can just take out the breakfast basket with our vegemite, peanut butter and jam easily and quickly.
 Likewise when cooking I can take out the sauces and pastes basket and I will have everything I need in one place without having to fiddle around with trying to get the bottle I want. We have also grouped all of our condiments together and our dressings together making that simple and quick to take out for meal times when needed. We moved our omega 3 and probiotic supplements from the door to a basket to pull out during the morning rush!

These Marie Storage baskets come in different sizes and are fantastic as they have a handle making them easy to grab! They are also nice and high so no fear of tall bottles of tomato sauce or soy sauce falling out. 
On the next shelf down are these nifty Amalie pull out organisers! I would have never thought of using these in there but they have bee proving very useful! Three of the narrow ones fit across our fridge with a little room on the side - perfect for our home made stock paste which I use ALL THE TIME so I love that I have super fast access to it. I also use this space for the kids water bottles which is right next to a pull out organiser labelled 'kids'. 

I love that the pull out organiser is big enough to fit their sandwhich boxes in if we have prepared their school lunch the night before, while also having room for the kids yoghurt, juices or cheese sticks which are occasional school lunch box treats. Keeping them all in once place is certainly making packing lunches in the morning a little quicker!

I love how you can easily reach and take note of what is in the back since these organisers are so deep! No more finding old icky food in our fridge! Yay!

Next to this in another pull out organiser with dairy items such as our sour cream, cream, yoghurt and coconut cream. And in the third we currently have bags of lettuce and spinach in there - no getting lost behind containers and going yuck this time!

I really love having our veggies washed and chopped and ready to go in containers and these Tellfresh containers do the job beautifully for us. I try to have carrot sticks and cucumber cut up and ready most of the time for the kids - that makes lunch box assembling in the mornings a little easier. It also means that there are healthy things in the fridge that any of us can just grab when we're feeling like a snack.

Lately with a new baby in the house I have also been chopping up veggies the night before for dinner the next day ready to throw into the pot! I just pull the container from the fridge and add them into what I am cooking. Easy and can be done with one hand!

I'm amazed at the difference! With just a few simple products and a little rearranging our fridge is working much better for us! Moving all the awkward bottles of sauce that didn't really fit as you can see in the photo below from the fridge door and placing them in baskets has made a big difference. We even removed two shelves in the door to accommodate the height of our water bottles and have much more useable space in the fridge after these changes. 

Having access to the back of the fridge with the pull out organisers means nothing gets lost in the abyss behind other food anymore.

The other great thing about having everything in baskets, pull out organisers or containers is that pulling everything out takes no time at all now, so getting in there to give the shelves a good wipe is an even quicker job!

Thank you so much Howards Storage World!

Check out Howards Storage World's Spring Revival Catalogue for a look at a heap of awesome products to help you get organised as well as lots of inspirational mini makeovers! If you need a little organising help, take a photo of your area in need of attention and take it into Howards Storage World and see what they can come up with to help get you on your way to organised bliss!!

The fantastic people at Howard's Storage World are also giving one of my lovely readers the chance to win $50 voucher! 
To enter simply follow the prompts on the Rafflecopter widget and tell me what you would like to spring clean with $50 to Howards Storage World!! {giveaway is open to Australian residents now and closes at 11:59pm WST on 10/11/13}


a Rafflecopter giveaway