Ever since we moved in we’ve had the same trash can set up: two of them inside the kitchen, one for organic and the second for plastics, and two of them right outside, one for glass and another one for paper. Oh and in between the glass and paper we have a bottle to recycle oil. Yeah, we recycle everything we can (Sidenote: I hate it when people give the “I have a really small kitchen, there’s no way I can recycle because so many trash cans simply don’t fit” argument. It drives me crazy. I’m sure you can figure out a way to do it if you really want to. Ikea has some great options.)

Anyway, since the trash cans inside the kitchen were visible, I knew I wanted something nice enough and picked up a couple of these from Ikea. (They don’t seem to be available in the US). This worked for us until… we realized it didn’t. Here’s why:

• The inside of the lids were getting really, really dirty from when the can was full, and because of the matte-like material it was impossible to clean them no matter how hard we scrubbed. I’m not going to show you a picture because, well, it’s kind of gross, so you’ll have to take my word for it.
• The plastic bin was always overflowing and I was getting really sick of looking at it.
• They were right next to the radiator. Obviously it isn’t such a great idea to put the trash right next to the heat. Yeah, we’re geniuses.
• They were also scratching the radiator, and leaving a ton of black marks on it.

But how could we solve this problem? I didn’t want to give up one of our cabinets (we only have three bottom cabinets, after all). After thinking about it, I realized there was no other way: the cleaning below the kitchen sink had to go. So when we went to Ikea on Friday, we checked the recycling bin options they had for under the sink and settled on two big rectangular bins that could fit side by side. Initially we wanted to install them on rails so they could be pulled out for easier access, but when we arrived home and tried to install them we realized there wasn’t enough clearance under the sink to do that. We’ll have to return those this week.

So the organization project we did a while ago with Ikea plastic boxes, that had the cabinet looking like this…

… had to go. Luckily everything was taped instead of screwed onto the cabinet so it was easy to remove. Since they still fit, we decided to keep the two top white baskets for kitchen towels, scrubs, and the dishwasher detergent, which are the things we use on a daily basis in the kitchen. This is what the cabinet looks like right now:

And where the trash cans used to be is now empty:

The bigger problem is, obviously, what are we going to do with all these cleaning supplies?

We’re facing two options:

• Either we reconfigure the broom closet so that everything fits (this would be the cheaper, easier choice, but I’m not sure I can make everything work inside that tiny closet)
• Or we bite the bullet and swap the pedestal sink inside the guest bathroom for a vanity, like we were planning on doing eventually anyway.

Obviously the second one is a lot more time consuming and more expensive, but the first option would just be a temporary fix. And I’m not sure I want to spend my time and energy on a temporary fix. But the vanity is expensive, and I’m also not sure we have the funds right now to do it the way we want to. What do you guys think? Does anyone have any third option we haven’t considered?

What do you think? Share your opinion in the comments.