Before...and after

Ok, I preface all this by saying my parents are amazing! My mom is one of the kindest people you could meet with a heart of gold. Her one....idiosyncrasies is that she's....frugal. Well, to be honest, cheap. Now, this frugality is what allowed my brother and I to do so much as kids. We both want our parents to spend money on themselves now. And to be honest, some of the kitchen stuff I want to change/fix for health reasons. Since my mom retired she's done a great job of clearing out the crap. I just wanted to help in a couple areas that I knew would be much more difficult for her.

So here are the before and after shots of the fridge. This is the door. As you can see...packed full. And only about 1/4 of them are actually used. The rest are just 1/2 full from when I was there, or friends coming over. This is a close-up of the saved ketchup, relish, vinegar, sot sauce etc things that have collected over the years. True...there might be a use for them some day...but some of those packets are 20 years old!!!! So out they went.

Here's the inside. This looks MUCH better than usual...I think 'cause they were away on vacation. Usually it's so stuffed you can't fit one more thing in it.

And after:

I also did a couple of the drawers and cupboards. Unfortunately I didn't take before pics! But you can see the results. You might not know what an improvement it is...but it is! :)

So mom was a tiny bit pissed...but she'll get over it! :) It was a great surprise, but I'll tell ya about that next time.