Rearranging my cabinets

Yesterday, I was baking my son's birthday cake for his party (which was today) so I needed to find ingredients that I don't use very often. That required me to get into an awkward cabinet. It is a cabinet in the corner of the kitchen, but it's not what I consider a corner cabinet. It's door isn't angled. Instead, the cabinet is super deep. It is very hard to get to anything at the back of the cabinet. I'd heard the tip about using a lazy susan in cabinets and gave it a try. It has worked out very well.

Here is what I saw when I opened the cabinet yesterday.Having the lazy susan in the cabinet allows me to see what is in the back without having to take a bunch of stuff out. I don't remember what I was looking for, but I was looking a little more thoroughly than I normally do. (The stuff I use most often is the closest to the door.) I looked a little more closely and this is what I saw:(I had to use the flash to really show what was in there.) If you look closely you can see the top of a box in the very back. That box is not on the lazy susan so I did not know what it was. I pulled everything out and this is what I found:I must have bought the powdered milk for a recipe--which I must not have ever made because the box was unopened. The jar is marked for making your own salad dressing, which I have never done. I would never have looked for the powdered milk back there. So, if I needed it for another recipe, I would have bought more. I would have looked there for the jar but we received it as a wedding or shower gift (11 years ago) and have never used it so I probably would have never even looked for it.

When I put the stuff back there I guess I thought it was the best use of space because it is stuff I hardly ever (or never) use. Now I see that I might as well say good-bye to anything I put behind the lazy susan because I won't see it for a long while. I decided to make a small change to see if I could make it work a little better.

Here is what I did:It is a very small change. I pushed the lazy susan back farther and brought the powdered milk up front.

The lazy susan turned just fine and I was still able to get what I needed off of it so I decided to check the top shelf.

Here is what I saw:Looks pretty good. The lazy susan works great up here.

Here is what I couldn't see:These items were behind the lazy susan. The oil and vinegar thing is another wedding/shower gift that has never been used. I have no idea why the matches were back there. My husband was looking for matches last fall when he was having issues with the grill and we couldn't find any (because I hid them.) Obviously not a good place for them because I would never (and didn't) look back there for them. The box contains cupcake liners, decorative icing, and Wilton icing color. Guess what I bought yesterday morning before I baked the cake?Wilton black icing color. (It worked out because I ended up using what I already had in addition to what I bought, but still.)

So, I moved that lazy susan back also.Not much of a difference as far as how the lazy susan works, but a big difference as far as how effectively the space gets used.

Now that I am looking at the pictures I am not so sure I am going to like having to reach inside the cabinet to get to the items on the lazy susans. I know I tested them yesterday but we will see if I still like it when I am actually in the middle of cooking. Even if I don't like them so far back and decide to move them toward the front, I am still better off not having anything behind them.

I'm linking up to Works for Me Wednesday and Org Junkie's 52 Weeks of Organizing (for both the using of the lazy susans as well as moving them so far back in this corner.)