- [Narrator] Does your fridge
currently look like this, and you'd like it to look more like this, but you're not quite sure where to start? Well, today, I've got you covered. In this video, I'm going to
share with you five easy steps to give your fridge a
Pinterest-worthy makeover. So if you're looking for some cleaning and organizing motivation, stay tuned. (light music) Okay, guys, so here's what my fridge is looking like right now, and honestly, I'd have
to say it's not so bad. I've definitely seen it a lot worse, but I'm excited for a change. Right now, things are just
haphazardly shoved in everywhere, and that makes it really
hard to find things. I'm also seeing an abundance of spills and plenty of crumbs everywhere, so I'm excited to get started. (swishing)
Step number one starts off like a lot of reorganizing projects, and that means I've gotta
take everything out. Emptying everything out
on to my countertops really helps me to see
everything that I have, and as I'm doing this, I'm trying to keep my groups together. So my fruits and my
veggies are together here, and my condiments are together and so on. That's going to make putting
these back in my fridge in an organized way a
light easier, and you guys, since I wanna take my time on this and really deep clean everything, I'm going to place my
more perishable foods in a cooler with some ice packs so things like milk, meat, eggs, and cheese won't just be sitting on my counter getting
all hot and bothered. They're gonna stay nice
and fresh in this cooler while I work. Now, this is the perfect time
to toss out any expired food. Yes, some of these things are super old, and I'm just gonna go and toss those out, and I'm also going to toss out things that my family and I
tried but didn't like. Now thankfully, this
doesn't happen very often, but if the food's been
sitting in my fridge for a while and no one wants to eat it, I'm gonna go ahead and
get rid of that, too, and here's a pro tip when
you're throwin' out your food. Don't be like me and spill
it all over the floor. (swishing)
Now, step two is all about cleaning. Now that I have everything
out of my fridge, I'm ready to go ahead and remove all of the drawers that I can. That way, I can get them into my sink with some hot, soapy water. I just use my regular dish soap for this, and if my drawers are
really dirty or sticky, I like to let them soak in
the warm water for a bit before I give them a good scrub. Once they're all scrubbed out, I just rinse them off
and set them out to dry. Now, with my fridge, not everything can be taken out to clean, and that's where the vacuum comes in. Now, I know that might sound
weird to clean your fridge with a vacuum, but hear me out. I learned this tip from Meg
over at the channel Love Meg a while ago, and it works amazingly. Now, you wanna make sure
that you have a vacuum with a little extender piece like this, and if your vacuum is cordless, that makes it a lot easier, too. This just sucks up all of the crumbs, and it does an amazing job at cleaning out hard-to-clean spaces. Another unexpected item that I like to use to clean
my fridge is a toothbrush. Now, don't worry. This is an old toothbrush that is designated only for cleaning. This guy is perfect for
scrubbing stock-on gunk and for cleaning out
those hard-to-clean ridges inside your fridge. Now it's time to spray
everything down, and for me, I really prefer not using a heavily-scented or perfumed
cleaner for my fridge. I really like these two cleaners
from Method, #notsponsored. These do a great job at cleaning, and the mint-scented one and the grapefruit-scented
one are my absolute favorite. They just smell so clean and refreshing. So now, I'm just giving
everything a good wipe down. I like to use a microfiber cloth for this, but a Magic Eraser also works really well, and now that my fridge
looks sparkling clean and it smells like peppermint, it's time to replace the drawers so I can move on to my next step. (swishing)
Step number three is what I call the planning stage. Now, if you're really
not sure where to start, you can go ahead and draw out your plan. I'm more of a visual learner,
so this really helps me. Normally in this fridge, I store the milk in the door
of the fridge, but recently, I heard that that is not
the best place to store milk since the door gets hotter
than the rest of the fridge, and this can also be a time
where you can try moving shelves around just to see what might work for you better, but after
trying a few different things and because of the kind
of shelves that I have, I decided it would be a lot easier to not change the location
of our milk after all. Even if it's not the
quote recommended place, we've never had any
issues with spoiled milk, so I'm okay with it. (swishing)
For step four, it's time to containerize. Now, there are a lot of different choices when it comes to refrigerator containers. Some of these I bought
a long time ago at Ross, and some I bought recently at Home Goods. They range in price from
$3.99 to $5.99 apiece. They're super sturdy and easy to clean, but I also have several
really nice containers from the Dollar Tree, as well. These aren't quite as big or see through, but they are really great,
especially for just a dollar. In the past, I've organized my fridge and my pantry using only
Dollar Tree baskets, so you definitely can do this on a budget. I'll go ahead and link
those videos down below if you wanna check 'em out. Now, I like to play around
with these containers while they're still empty,
just to see my options and to figure out which
configuration I like best, and now comes the fun part,
putting everything back. If you were a fan of the
game Tetris back in the day, this is definitely gonna
be a lot like that. My fridge, I created different
zones for everything. If you know me, you'll know
that I love all things rainbow, so I put as many things in
rainbow order as I could. Starting at the very top,
I went ahead and prepped some of my kids' favorite
fruits and vegetables. This makes choosing a
healthy snack a lot easier 'cause they're ready to go, and right next to them, I put
a lot of my favorite drinks. These fruit-flavored sparkling waters are a lot like LaCroix drinks, if you know what I'm talking about, but these ones are a lot cheaper
because I got them at Aldi, and right behind them,
I've tucked a few things that I don't use on a daily basis. So back here, we have extra
pickles, extra yogurt, and some Parmesan cheese. On the next level, I've created
four different sections. Over here, we have the egg
section, and in our house, we go through a lot of eggs. So I'm really glad that I'm
able to fit three dozen eggs in this small space. Next is the dairy section. In here, I have the yogurt I use for overnight oats and smoothies. There's also cottage cheese
in here and sour cream. Next to that, I have the meat drawer, and I love having a separate meat drawer, especially if I'm defrosting meat or just in case something leaks
it's not gonna leak all over my fridge. Then last on my shelf, I
have our leftover container. Right now, I just have
a few things in here, but I like having a designated section. That way, my family members
know what they should eat first. Now, moving on down to the next level, this one is all about the kids. Now, if you're new here, I have four kids. My oldest is 10, and my
youngest is almost four. So on this shelf, I put
a lot of their snacks that they're gonna be able to
get themselves independently when they need a snack. In this first section, I
have some Greek yogurt cups. Next to them, I have some
no sugar added fruit cups. In here, we have mandarin oranges
and peaches and pineapple. My kids love these, but watch out. They can be messy, especially
when you try to open them. Now, this next container
I've doubled up on, and I have both hummus
cups and yogurt tubes. These hummus cups go
perfectly with carrots and cucumbers or chips, and then in this next section, I have lots of different
applesauce pouches. We have apple blueberry
and apple raspberry. My kids love these, but I love them, too. They're really good, and
then last but not least, I have just a few juice
pouches in here, as well. Right now, I have both grape
and super fruit flavors. Now, moving on to my
fruit and veggie drawers, now in both of these drawers, I've used two soda can
organizers from the Dollar Tree, just to separate out the different things. Over on the fruit side,
I have apples, mangoes, and then I have lots of different citrus. I have lemons for my water in the morning, limes to add to my Dirty Cokes, and my kids love to have these
oranges in their lunches. Then over here on the vegetable side, I have some carrots and
some celery and a cucumber, and I actually haven't
watched these at this point. My plan is to wash them as I use them. Now, that brings me to the little skinny drawer at the bottom, and I like to call this
the meat and cheese store. In this first container, I have all of our different
lunch meats and pepperoni. In the container right next to it, I've stored all of our sliced cheese. So in here, I have provolone
and Swiss and cheddar. Over in the next container,
I have some sticks of cheese, both cheddar and mozzarella, and then I have just a few
little Babybel cheeses, as well, and then in this last
section is another new thing that I'm trying out. I like to buy the big
bags of cheese at Costco. It's a really good price
if you buy them in bulk, but I wanted a better way to
store the cheese in my fridge. So I just took two glass
storage containers, and I filled it with as much of the
shredded cheese as I could. That's about four cups worth of cheese, so I think that's plenty, and then I can just store the
rest of cheese in my freezer, and yes, it is totally
fine to freeze cheese. I do it all the time, no problem. Now, I love how this main
section of my fridge turned out, but I do wanna very quickly show you the doors of the fridge. Over on this side at the
top, I have some butter, some sauces I don't use very
often, and some bullion. Below that, I have some
lemon and lime juice in case I'm ever out of the fresh kind. I also have some fancy
butter, some cream cheese, and then in this kind of awkward space, I was able to fit all of my canned dough. So crescent dough, pizza dough, things like that fit perfectly here, and then on the bottom,
I just have some salsa, some dip, and some other
sauces we don't use very often like honey mustard and Dijon mustard. Over on this other side
in the top section, I have our maple syrup, our nut butters that need to
be refrigerated, and the jam. Below that, I have our
most used condiments. So we have mayo and mustard,
ketchup, ranch, of course. I also have Italian dressing. I have the pesto that we absolutely love and a jar of marinara sauce that I like to use quite often in lunches, and then finally, at the
bottom in its usual spot, I have my milk. Like I said, this hasn't
been a problem for us yet. Over here, I also have
orange juice and almond milk, and then right at the bottom,
I have just enough space for four of these
ready-to-go protein drinks. (swishing) Step number five is all about labels. Now, to label your fridge
or to not label your fridge is definitely a personal choice, but I do think it's a really helpful way to let other family members
or people in your house know where things are and
where to put them back after they've used them. There are lots of different
ways that you can make labels, but I saw a really great idea on the YouTube channel
What's Up Moms recently, and for this, all you have to do is take some clear mailing labels, and you're going to also need a Sharpie, any color you'd like. I tried using a white paint Sharpie and a silver metallic Sharpie. Next, you just print out whatever you want your labels to say onto some regular printer paper. Then you place your
sheet of labels on top, make sure to line it up, and then simply trace over the words. Now, of course, if you have
really nice handwriting, you can skip this part
and just freehand it, but I think this is such
a quick and easy way to make labels, and
they're also removable. So if you wanna change them
out or reposition them, you can totally do that. Now, I hope this video
gave use some good cleaning and organizing motivation. If you liked it, and please
give it a big thumbs up. Subscribe if you're new, and if you're looking for
even more organizing ideas, you can check out these
videos right over here. Thanks for watching, and
I'll see you next time.
