Minimalist small kitchen tour | what we actually use as a large family

[@jkp62]

We keep a streamlined kitchen also, not because of a small kitchen, but because I did a complete clean out of everything in our kitchen one year. I packed up everything from pots and pans, cooking utensils, bakeware, dishes, drink ware, eating utensils, I mean everything and only kept a cast iron skillet, 1 pot, one baking sheet, one casserole dish, 4 each of dishes, drink ware, eating utensils, 1 each spatula, tongs, wood cooking spoon, stainless steel cooking spoon, ladle. I cleaned and repainted everything in the kitchen and used just those items, as the months went by, I would go out and get something from a box. After a year, I had my crockpot, InstaPot, KitchenAid stand mixer, Ninja IQ blender set, my full set of my stainless steel cookware and my cast iron cookware, half my bakeware and utensils, 1 set of mixing bowls and measuring cups (both liquid and dry), measuring spoons, all my dishware and drinkware and eating utensils back in my house- folks, that was 1/3, yes ONE THIRD of what I had packed out a year before. The remaining items went to newlyweds that I asked several local churches to vet to start out their new home with. Over 3 years, I did this pack out method with every room in my house and there was a lot of donations made, especially the old towels, sheets, blankets to our local animal shelter. Excess cleaning and personal hygiene items and clothing went to our local people shelters. My husband did the same with “his” huge double care w/workshop, he found so many repeats of the same tools and stuff, that he called our son and sons-in-law over to get what they wanted, then donated to our local high schools wood/auto shops and the local trade school. We made no effort to sell a thing, the money was lost as soon as we bought these items over the years, we did t want the hassle and we wanted these items out of our home and garage- which was the purpose of the pack out “experiment”. Even excess seasonal decor went bye bye after offering to our adult children. Let me say, accumulating all that stuff created more stress than happiness, part of the accumulation was from 30 years of marriage and raising kids and keeping their rooms as they left it as they would come back after college or military service, but it was just annoying to keep seeing and reorganizing all that stuff. I would get upset as I cleaned and looked for things I knew we had, muttering “we need a bigger house”, but I had an epiphany at 50 years old that it wasn’t the size of our house, it was the amount of stuff that was “must haves”, Now at 62 and almost 42 years of marriage, we are so much more at rest when we walk into our house, looking for an item or just being able to reach into a cabinet without things falling out or pulling things out to get to something, even our food and spice cabinets are minimal, though we do have a huge storage closet we use as a stock pile pantry- as my kitchen cabinet food/spice supplies get low, I just go to the closet and shop for what I need to restock the kitchen cabinets, my linen closet has minimal sheets and towels (I keep a set each of sheets and towels in each bedroom closet) and all our hygiene and cleaning product stock pile is in that. And, to end, we have saved a lot of money by decluttering and minimizing because we now can see at a glance what we have or what we are low on, no more buying something we don’t need because we couldn’t find it or throwing something away because it expired due to being shoved to the back of a shelf.

[@joaquifernandez9757]

House Tour Please 🙏🥰😘

[@lightandmind77]

coming soon ;)

[@KarronAngel]

Watching you, gives me my reset button when its been a hard few days. Bless and thankyou for showing me how to live and cope. Hugs and love from UK. xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[@lightandmind77]

This warms my heart! Hugs to you! 🤍🤍

[@anamendes5904]

Este é sem dúvida o meu canal preferido, que inspiração, embora eu precise de mais canecas e pratos , somos só dois cá em casa, mas bebo infusões várias vezes por dia e ainda recebo muitas vezes minha família, vizinhos e amigos, todos gostam de infusões/chá,😄e coloco sempre as canecas na máquina. Adorei ver a a organização da cozinha, obrigada por nos inspirar com seu exemplo de vida simples, tudo se torna mais fácil, um incentivo que nos ajuda a simplificar e facilita o nosso dia a dia. 🥰🥰🥰

[@lightandmind77]

Estou muito feliz por estar aqui e gostar dos meus vídeos. 🤍🙏 Abraços!!

[@silc3435]

Loved the tour. I’m amazed at how you keep your kitchen so minimal with a large family. It looks great! I would love to see a full day of meals you make for your family ☺️

[@lightandmind77]

Absolutely!! 🤍

[@michaelwiebe4282]

Great video, God bless You!

[@marylouiselacasse9986]

Thank you so much for sharing your kitchen with us. You are a very big inspiration to me. You show me that living simply and neatly is doable with a big family. I have been living this way for years but sometimes I need a good reminder to get me on my game again. Life happens and things creep back in, lol! I love your peaceful videos. Also, I wanted you to know that I said a Rosary for you and your family so that your transition would go well. I hope it did. Thanks, Katie.

[@lightandmind77]

You are so right. Stuff seems to creep in so fast! Thank you, Mary! That is so beautiful of you to do. My family and I for sure felt your prayers because this transition went so smoothly and His peace was felt throughout the move. I am grateful for you! God Bless. 🤍

[@catherinewilke5583]

Love your take on reusing jars, makes perfect sense, better for the earth and saves money. Kitchen is beautiful. I agree with you on the counters but I haven’t figured out a place to keep the toaster that isn’t on the counter. Would love to see where yours is.

[@lightandmind77]

We actually do not own a toaster. We just toast our bread in the oven :)

[@calliewhitley8224]

I love seeing what is very useful to others who live a simple and mindful life. Would you consider sharing any homeschooling content?

[@lightandmind77]

Yes!! :)

[@GaynorFamilyHomestead]

We’ve only ever had washed dishes. You can use the dishwasher for storage for large baking sheets etc.

[@gretelkettle3838]

I totally understand the issue with needing to own more dishes when you start using a dishwasher!! 🤪 It’s such a funny trade off- the dishwasher is super convenient, but then we have to own twice as many dishes! 😂

[@lightandmind77]

Yes!!! 😆

[@jessicaz.1901]

Love the kitty jumping up to play with your apron strings ❤️

[@lightandmind77]

Haha! I did not even know she was there until I was editing this video and saw it. 😁

[@denisecarter5117]

I reuse my dried organic coconut and walnut bags. Then when dirty I don’t feel bad about throwing them away.

[@ReBeccaRez]

I am looking for a good energy ball recipe. I use Kodiak right now, they are great, but $$$$. Would love a video!

[@lightandmind77]

Oh yes! I have made these for years and love them. You can change up the ingredients too with cranberries, peanut butter, raisins etc :) I like chocolate. 😉 I added it in this video I did a few months ago. The recipe is in the description of this video :kzbin.info/www/bejne/iXawd5-vlJySjbc

[@laurac56]

Lovely kitchen!

[@lightandmind77]

Thank you 🤍

[@Keine_alte_Sabine]

The Ikea glasses are durable but if they break they break unexpectedly and into a thousand pieces, be careful 😁

[@lightandmind77]

Thank you for the warning! :)

[@TheMennomilist]

Katie, I used to have a chalkboard I created and had on the wall by our table for a long time (used for homeschooling) and had verses up there I'd change too (and have my boys memorize). Very cute that you have a similar thing! How old are your children? Your new kitchen looks so nice! We only have enough mugs for all our family members (we have cocoa drinkers). I grew up with a family that had loads of mugs, granted my parents had hymn sings and Bible studies in the 80s and 90s with a large coffee machine for all the people over, but they haven't had that many over since like 1994. I also keep food jars, mainly as glasses to drink out of. I enjoyed your tour.

[@lightandmind77]

Oh, wow! That is so funny. I think it is a very sweet idea! They range between ages 2-9. :)

[@TheMennomilist]

@@lightandmind77 What a fun range! I love it!

[@lightandmind77]

Yes! 🤍

[@margarethawk3073]

Can you share your humus recipe? I buy it but if I had a good recipe I would like to try making it. Thank you

[@ElaNovember]

I have a minimal kitchen since 2016. But it's still difficult when I have friends or people visiting, and I feel like I don't have enough plates, forks, glasses or bowls for them. How do you manage this?

[@lightandmind77]

Could you have an extra box stored in your closet or something where you keep the few extras of dishes for guests? or have a separate kitchen cabinet in your kitchen where you keep these extras so it is not feeling cluttered in your cabinets where you keep your everyday things? Keeping a few extras if hosting is something that happens often makes total sense! :)

[@BlackRose-ov7js]

❤❤❤❤❤

[@lightandmind77]

🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍

[@leek7987]

What about when you have guests that would need to use a mug? What would they use for a plate if you had guests for dinner?

[@lightandmind77]

If a mug was needed, we would use the ones we have. But that is not a common situation. If that was something that came up often, we would have extras, but we do have the extra glass cups. We mainly have family over and they each have stainless steel water bottles as well so they just fill up their water out of our water filter. :) I think it truly just varies depending on if you have guests over often or host dinner parties often. Storing extra dinnerware would make complete sense and would not be clutter if that was a regular occurrence. :)

[@Michelle-xk9gl]

I never understood why people spend hundreds of dollars to put food and laundry detergent and some fancy containers. I have almost everything in its original container or box, it's just fine.

[@jkp62]

I do because we live in the country and we have bugs and mice and humidity and the paper and cardboard packages are no defense against those 3 things. And if folks want to buy pretty containers to decant stuff into, that’s their choice.

[@lmagas-om9dp]

Curious, do your kids never need a warm drink in a mug?

[@lightandmind77]

Not usually. But when they do, they use our mugs. If it was a more regular thing then we would have some extras. But it is not a common thing here :)