Fridge organised
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“We are the heirs of habits and mental customs” Robert Green Ingersoll

Having rendered our fridge clean in the previous article, and with our minds set on treating it better so that we wouldn’t have to repeat the cleaning ritual as often, we scoured the Internet and found some useful tips for organising our fridge.

And the results were frankly life-changing. Image source: cdn.hometalk.com


Tip 1: Wrap Shelves in Cling Wrap or Plastic Sheets

A lot of elbow grease went into wetting and rubbing out encrusted stains on the accoutrements that came with our fridge. Not wanting to do that on a regular basis, we taped thin plastic sheets (the kind we used to wrap textbooks) onto the shelves to make future cleaning as easy as a quick wipe.


Tip 2: Lay Mats for Safety, Convenience, and Colour Coding

The most common kind of spill in our fridge happens because of fumbling hands and containers with high centres of gravity. With a fridge mat, there is added protection for fragile containers and friction to keep tall things from falling over. If any liquids happen to spill on a fridge mat, it can be rinsed under the sink. After some time, the different colours also help to reduce the amount of time the door spends open.

Also, they’re pretty. Image source: cdn.hometalk.com


Tip 3: Subdivide Compartments with Transparent Containers

Another way to go about reducing the time spent with the fridge door open is to divide larger areas with transparent containers or upcycled water-resistant packaging. Sorting our foodstuffs into rigid and see-through plastic bins made them easier to retrieve, and if we couldn’t find what we were looking for, whole subsections could be pulled out for a more intensive search on the kitchen countertop.


Tip 4: Use Labels for Speedy and Effective Navigation

Labelling the interior with stickers and masking tape enabled us to find what whatever we were looking for quicker, but some members of our household still tended to spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking with the fridge door open.

Imagine encountering this sight after paying the electricity bill. Photo by nrd on Unsplash.

Combining our need for labelling with our fridge’s existing role as a community message board, we used whiteboard markers to highlight critical information such as remaining quantities or dates of opening and expiry on the outside of the door. These tactics got us to the point where we could draft shopping lists without ever opening the fridge door.


Tip 5: Turntables – Enough Said

Despite this particular tactic involving a specially-bought item rather than upcycled junk or stationery, it is safe to say we have been converted. Where we decided one bin for a single category was inconvenient, such as for our wide assortment of speciality condiments, a plastic rotating tray enabled us to quickly retrieve our jar of Dijon mustard without having to individually move everything else around when the occasion called for it.

Such as anytime we’re listening to rap. Image source: cdn.makespace.com

Having created some semblance of order with an array of stationery and transparent containers, we began thinking about the long-term. Our delicate organisational structure would surely fall apart without some routines to maintain them, so we looked into some software for our hardware, some rules to go with the infrastructure we had so painstakingly laid – and arrived at 10 Useful Habits to Keep Your Fridge Happy. Stay tuned for our next article!


(Written by Kevin Eichenberger, 16th June 2020)

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A lot depends on fridge sizes.