I’m having a hard time coming to terms with the fact Summer is almost here! Can you believe it? Not only has the school year flown by, but 2016 feels as if it’s moving at lightning speed. It only struck me the other day while making client appointments when I turned to the month of June in my planner. Wow! Summer has also been a topic of many conversations lately as parents are sharing day camp / vacation ideas. It’s coming…and these last few weeks are certain to fly with all the fun end of year activities!
My mom clients are stressing about their hard organization work falling apart over the summer. Sadly those perfectly organized spaces aren’t going to stay that way much longer…it’s going to take some upkeep. And I’m feeling it too! I spent today tearing apart a couple bedrooms, gathering a few bags of donations myself. When it comes to kid spaces, I find the less there is to mess up – the less I’m left to pick up or tidy. So as the school year comes to an end, you can find me at least one day a week focused on my own home organization. One of those main areas to tackle are the pantry and fridge / freezer. With kids home all summer, you can bet on a lot of snacking and drinking…and friends coming over to snack and drink too! We have a pool so I’m anticipating a lot of kids hanging out with us each week – and I love it! To kick off my pre-summer organization, the first area I hit was the fridge in the garage…
If you’ve been reading a while, you know the fridge opening inside the house is a 1960 size. Therefore, the fridge we moved here with is living in the garage. And it’s come in handy for overflow foods, drinks, party platters and bunny food. Did I mention we have 2 rabbits? More on that another time. #ormaybenot I’ll admit, the contents of the fridge will increase as we get closer to summer. For now I’m reveling in its simple organization, cleanliness and new fridge shelf liners from Fridge Coaster.
I love opening my fridge when it’s this clean. Bottles perfectly lined up. Labels facing forward.
Gotta drool over it while it lasts, right?
With the tiny fridge in my kitchen, this fridge has been my savior for containing lunch drinks, large bottles of sparking water, sports drinks, extra salad ingredients (I eat a lot of salads), extra butter (I bake a lot) and alcohol / beer I generally keep on hand for entertaining. My 6 year old loves milk so the larger gallon sized jugs work well out here. Since we are still in the midst of little league season, having the fridge tidied for baseball games or practices has been wonderful! Just grab and go…
An overflow fridge gives me loads of space in my kitchen freezer too. The freezer drawer out here contains overflow breakfast / dinner foods that would otherwise crowd my kitchen freezer. I’ve previously shared this freezer drawer right here…
I’m sure you’re all aware of the benefits of having an overflow fridge / freezer in the garage. What I wanted to mention and share today is that these little guys get dirty – quickly. Especially when kids are in and out of it. And especially because they live in the garage, where they aren’t getting that same daily cleaning attention. I gave my fridge a good scrub down and added my favorite fridge shelf liners to the shelves and drawers. If you haven’t met Fridge Coaster…you’re welcome…
Fridge Coaster is the functional shelf liner that’s going to help keep those shelves, drawers and doors clean. Which in turn means less cleaning for you! If you’re frustrated with sippy cup spills, condiment jar drips or dribbles here and there, Fridge Coaster will not only keep your fridge clean, it’s absorbable…and recyclable, compostable and environmentally friendly! Do you know any other fridge liner that can do all that?
Ordering a set for your own fridge / freezer couldn’t be easier. Just locate your fridge model on their site and place your order. The design and color options are wonderful…especially their new prints!…
I chose the gray stripes…
Classic!
Fridge Coaster is made in the USA and the owner of the company, Ashlyn, couldn’t be sweeter! We’ve worked together on the blog before (with my kitchen fridge) but she was so kind to pop over again for a pre-summer organization giveaway! Thank you, Ashlyn! One lucky Simply Organized reader is going to win a $50 e-gift card to purchase your very own Fridge Coasters! As always, I keep giveaway entry very simple – enter one or as many ways as you wish to up your chances. And be sure to share this great product with friends and family! I’m looking forward to making it the cleanest summer my garage fridge has ever experienced!
Good luck guys!
My messiest fridge spill is a toss-up between a bottle of chocolate syrup or congealed blood from meats.
Ugh – those are the worst! I hear you!
xo,
Sam
Love your blog! I just recently found you! ONE of my messiest spills in the fridge would be a bowl of cut up fruit that was knocked over but the guilty party “forgot” to mention it so the mess had time to spead over the entire shelf and then down the back of the fridge. YUK!
Awe, thank you!! So glad you found me too!
Ugh, when a mess spills over to the rest of the shelves or the back of the fridge? The worst!!
xo,
Sam
egg carton spilled in the fridge because I was trying to grab to many things at once.
Oh boy – that’s gonna be a mess! 🙂
xo,
Sam
I have to say my messes come from defrosting meat. It’s so hard to know if there is the slightest nick on the wrapper of a whole frozen chicken until it slowly defrosts in a puddle of blood. Ugh!
OH I totalllllllyyyyy agree with this! When the meat is frozen or super cold / near frozen, you don’t know if there’s a tear in the packaging. A good majority of our fridge messes come from the same issue.
xo,
Sam
I’m not sure what the spill was, but it was very sticking and went from the top shelf to under the bottom drawers, all down the back. I had to take everything out to get it clean!
The worst type of spills are the type that go all the way to the bottom…under the drawers. Yikes!
xo,
Sam
My messiest fridge spill was when I had a drink dispenser thinking I was all cool and organized with it. Then to open the fridge the next day and the dispenser had leaked almost all of the sweet tea that was in it. #stickymess
First of all, hilarious and love how we think we’re all cool doing this little fridge tricks. I do them too! With much failure. 🙂
And oh no!!! What a mess…I’m sure it was very sticky.
xo,
Sam
Believe it or not a roll of biscuits (that was laying on it’s side….pointing towards the door) exploded in a gooey mess both outward to sides, forwards and to the back. The lid towards door knocked over a jar of jam sitting in the door that one of my gr’kids had not put on correctly. And the bottom end knocked over another jar in back of the roll. Needless to say that was a interesting huge sight when we opened the Fridge and fun cleanup.
Oh my gosh!!! Sounds like something that would happen in my fridge!! What a story though! 🙂
xo,
Sam
My husband is always making messes in my fridge. I would love Fridge Coasters…great idea!
Thank you and good luck!!
xo,
Sam
an open cup of whole milk all over the top shelf – and dripping to lower shelves – yuck!
Oh my gosh….. my messiest experience has to be the spilled cherry juice that wasn’t found until it had turned into the stickiest red syrup that I’d ever seen. Needless to say a lot of hot soapy water and scrubbing for me. I NEED these fridge liners desperately.
I’m usually the mess maker. I love these jarred cherries (not maraschino’s) and the jars always drip. I am very careful, but they drip anyway. I have kidney disease and am on a renal diet. It’s one of the treat’s I’m allowed to have.
Mine was a leaky milk carton. Thanks for all your great advice!
I think jelly spills are the worst! I hate cleaning those out of my fridge.
Great product! Do they fit in the door bins? The condiments seem to make the biggest mess in the fridge.
YES! They do!!!
This is lovely. Never thought they actually had such a thing. Life continues to surprise you! 🙂
My messiest spill actually happened in the fridge’s attached freezer. I put a bottle of sparkling cider in there to chill for just a bit and then promptly got busy with small people. It was a sticky, frozen mess of tiny green glass shards and oozy, gooey frozen cider.
Is it weird I get so excited reading this post? 😉 Love your clean, organized fridge!
Oh boy, definitely meat that leaked. Thankfully it was on the bottom shelf and now I always put it in a container.
I once had a bottle of hot sauce EXPLODE in my refrigerator! It was on the middle shelf and in the very back (of course!) so when it exploded it literally exploded on everything. There was glass and hot sauce for days. It was so terrible.
My husband and I just bought our first home, and I’ve been meaning to get some of these to protect the beautiful new fridge we now have! 🙂 My worst fridge spill in one of our old apartment fridges was a jar of spaghetti sauce that slipped out of my hand as I was taking it off of the fridge’s top shelf. Glass and red sauce all over the floor and inside the fridge- not a lovely sight!
My in-laws have a pomegranate tree so we make and freeze lots of juice every fall.
And every so often one of the containers will get a hairline crack that you don’t see at first, then you wake up to a cascade of defrosted pomegranate juice all over the frig.
(you’d think we’d learn to always defrost them with a towel under them. Or on a lower shelf. Or something. But no. )
ps – nice choice on the Sierra Nevada, although I’m one of those weirdos who prefers it in the bottle.
A soy sauce bottle that wasn’t properly closed fell on its side on the top shelf and trickled all the way down to the bottom.
I have never seen this product before reading about it on your blog! As I made the pledge to become more organized this blog has been a big help… ok now for my messiest spill… I’d have to say molasses syrup or honey. I have had both (not at the same time, yikes!) leaking in my fridge and they are so gooey and sticky to get rid of, ugh…. I can’t stand anything sticky, and these leaks dripped down from one level to the other…causing a mess and making fruits and veggies on lower levels have a sticky coating…ugh.
Hmm. My messiest fridge “spill” was when I left a can of soda in the freezer to cool and it exploded everywhere!
I defrost meat often in my fridge. It’s always so disappointing when the liquids from the defrosted meat leak from the ziplock bag. Yuck! Those fridge coasters would be awesome!
My messiest was totally last weekend. A friend brought over strawberry jello shots, but the jello was in the actual strawberries. Anyway, when we went to go pull them out of the fridge, they dropped and spilled ALL OVER EVERYTHING. I had to pull out every single one of my fridge drawers and clean everything.
We always have soda spills and BBQ sauce!
I am curious as to the beverages that are in your fridge, especially what is behind the lemonade??
Haha! The drinks behind the lemonade are organic fruit juice packages with princesses on them. We grabbed them from a local upscale market so the girls that visit for swimming this summer have girly drinks. Everything else is a mix of kid drinks, cocktail mixers or sparkling waters (I like to make sparkly drinks with citrus during the summer.
Let me know if you have specific questions though!
Sam 🙂