Household Laws & Cupboard Organisation

A well-organised cupboard is as much a science as an art

There are a number of laws governing a household:

1. The Law of Object Inertia.

Any household object will remain in the place at which it was dropped, discarded or thrown. That is, unless it is one of the mobile household objects, in which case:


2. The Law of Mobile Objects

All mobile objects will steer clear of objects exhibiting object inertia. They will go around the object, or over it, but never, ever move it. That is, unless it is one of the barely mobile objects, in which case:

3. The Law of Barely Mobile Objects:

Small, barely mobile household objects may collide with non-mobile household objects with inertia. Small barely mobile objects may, in fact, be the primary distributor of non-mobile household objects. Small barely mobile objects can in fact not only distribute but even re-distribute non-mobile household objects, thereby defying the Law of Object Inertia (it's not a complete set of laws, and there are some incongruencies - to be amended by the next theoretical model).

4. and 5. The Two Laws of Displaced Objects

Law 4:

The ability to find any object is directly, and inversely, proportional to the value of that object.

Law 5:

The time taken to find any object is directly, and inversely, proportional to the urgency with which it needs to be found.

Laws 1 and 2 often work in conjunction. Example: Looking for your only set of car-keys when you are already late for the school concert? Bwahahahaha ...

6. The Law of Found Objects

Any and all household objects that you do not wish to be found, will be found. Furthermore, they will surface at precisely the time that a large, mobile, non-household object will enter the premisses, thereby embarrassing you deeply. Example: supply your own, mine are not for disclosure.

The Unnatural Order of Things

There is only one means whereby you can combat such natural laws, and that is by being unnaturally organised and threatening bodily harm to those other mobile objects should they not pick up household objects with inertia. But part of the reason for the inertia resides in the fact that, generally speaking, other mobile objects don't know where to put those with inertia. The problem then is, where do they put them? To which the frequent answer is: In the very, very last place you would think to look for them.

Now, while organising for one is easy, the trick really lies in organising the other mobile household objects. Fortunately, they all can now read. They are now obliged to read labels:

The spices are organised by type: Thai, Italian, Everyday, Braai and Indian

My children think I've gone label-crazy. My husband, on the other hand, knows I have. But it was either that, or just plumb-crazy, and I know which of the two I'd prefer. I think it's the same as the one they'd prefer. However, at the moment, they keep moving every time I am in the vicinity, concerned that if they stand for too long, they'll be labelled and stuck in a cupboard. (Hmm ... maybe not such a bad idea, come to think of it - )

Now, the reality is, I'm lazy. I don't like fossicking around in the pantry, up-ending cartons, wading knee-deep through jumbled-up boxes my husband saw fit to deposit on the floor where there was some space and, in many a teeth-grinding moment, realise that I can't bake what I wanted to bake without rushing out to the shops to get some or other ingredient that we should always have in stock. I want to be able to go into the pantry and not begin palpitations on the spot. 

Instead, I want to be greeted with a sight such as this:

Cupboard ingredients should be like little dicky-birds, sitting in a row

My mother had a maxim in the kitchen that: "Everything should have a place and there should be a place for everything." It's remarkable how much easier - not to mention immeasurably more efficient - it all becomes if you sort it out properly.

But, in order to ensure this order is kept, I have not only put everything into the place where I think it should reside (after long thought as to its placement), but then labelled both it and the place at which such items now reside, by means of labels on the shelves or even on the walls for those that are on the floor.

Yup, like this:

Some of the varieties of sugar any serious home-baker baker will have

That is, the treacle sugar must be in the place where the treacle sugar resides, no questions asked. And so on and so forth for other items such as the caramel sugar, vanilla sugar, castor sugar, icing sugar, ordinary granulated sugar, the white bread flour, the cake flour and every other food item now in the pantry, with all non-food related items henceforth banned forever from its space. 

It's been a useful exercise, thinking through where everything must go. Now all the baking stuff is on a single shelf with baking agents and spices on the left all your decorative stuff (cup-cake cases and the like) on the end shelf (since I undertake specialist decorating less often, and hence it can be at the back), and then on the right-hand shelf we have the flour, sugar and so on.

Baking agents go with baking spices

All the stuff you want to access quickly is close to the pantry door; the things you use less often are towards the back, and, more than anything else, they are clustered in terms of items you generally use together so you can find them quickly. Then, there's the fact that, if something is empty, the empty jar must still be placed at its place on the shelf so that ... you can see at a glance what you need to buy. How easy is that? Refills, on the other hand, are always placed behind the jars, so, again, you can see at a glance what you have extra of, and what you need to replenish. Too easy, really, as long as the system continues. 

All the shelves, all the goodies, all in place

No, I am not OCD, but I do think that anyone who enjoys working with data has to be more than a little obsessive about details and ensuring that whatever you need to work with is in the right column and the right row, and, once it is there, everything else becomes plain sailing.

Besides, we have a maddeningly "pretty" kitchen which is pretty dysfunctional as far as kitchens go - looks lovely but has SO little working space and great big areas you have to traverse to get to where your stuff actually is we've had to create very peculiar work-arounds and - yup, everything you actually need is in one, large, walk-in, open-shelved pantry. So - you are actually forced to organise, really. 

Now that I've basically sorted out the open shelves of the pantry, it's the rest of the kitchen I need to organise with drawer organisers we'll make out of our left-over industrial-strength packing plywood all our goods came home in from Saudi, and from there, I guess I'll get around to the rest of the house.

Starting with the drawers - we never knew we had as many wine-bottle openers until we got organised!

But I've found focusing on a single room at a time pays dividends and besides, it's the kitchen I need to have organised, particularly now that the boys are making lunches over the weekends too, so we have multiple people using the same area. And at least I don't any more stand in despair at the door of the pantry, looking at the havoc that is before me, before turning around and shutting the door on it all. Plus, it's begun to extend to the rest of the kitchen already, like this drinks and desserts cabinet:

Drinks and Desserts Cabinet