Your kitchen is where family meals are made, food is stored, and homework happens. If a kitchen is well-designed and laid out, it can be the epicenter of family life — a happy, warm place to gather for conversations and comfort foods. A chaotic kitchen that’s cluttered with dirty dishes, stacks of laundry, and gadgets and appliances left on the counter kills your time (and the time you might otherwise spend having heart-to-heart conversations with your family). In this article, we will walk you through 8 practical tips to declutter your kitchen and keep it feeling cheerful and fresh.
1. Separate Your Keep Pile and Throw Away Pile
One of the best things you can do to declutter is to have a pile where you will put all the items you will keep and throw away. To get rid of the clutter, you must focus on this stage first because if you don’t, what tends to happen is that you hold onto an item long after it should have been tossed, and then it gets buried with other things in some random corner of your home. This not only impedes your progress toward propelling yourself toward minimalism but also leaves a trail of stuff behind that makes cleaning and sorting difficult.
2. Invest in Glass Canisters for Food Storage
There are many benefits to using glass canisters instead of plastic. Glass doesn’t absorb flavors the way plastic does, so your food stays fresher and tastes better for a longer time. You also won’t have to worry about toxins leaching into your food from the plastic container and messing with your health. Plastic containers are more convenient because they’re lightweight and easy to store. However, glass canisters don’t take up much room at all and most of them come with a wood storage box. Cleaning them couldn’t be easier, either!
3. Organize Your Cabinets and Drawers
Cabinets and drawers are a part of our homes that we rarely think about. We just store stuff in them and assume they will be fine over time. Yet, there’s a good chance that you have cabinets and drawers which do not look very attractive at the moment. This is not surprising because many of us tend to place items directly within them without organizing them first. That is why it is important to understand how you can organize them the right way so that they look neat and organized all the time.
Related: Storage Tips and Tricks to Organize Your Kitchen Cabinets
4. Clear Out Your Fridge and Freezer
We all make big dinners and cook big meals to impress our friends and family — especially around the holidays. However, after time, these meals can take up space in your fridge and freezer. At least once a quarter you should get rid of all the extra space-taking foods in your fridge and freezer. It’s important to clear out your fridge because you need space to fit new leftovers and other food you may cook later on.
Perhaps you have leftover holiday cookies that you don’t want to eat all at once or some birthday cake that needs chilling for a few days. You could also consider starting a compost bin in your kitchen, so the food scraps from pork chops, chicken wings, and beef bones can be broken down naturally by bacteria. Composting can be a healthy solution for disposing of leftover food waste from your table.
5. Purge Your Pantry and Start Organizing
Pantry organization is so easy with the right tips. By getting rid of the clutter, it’s easy to see what you already have and plan out meals around what ingredients you need. You do not even have to go through everything in your pantry, just take out items that are expired or have been sitting there for years, and then replace them once you’ve done all of your other organizing.
Related: 10 Smart Storage Ideas to Organize Your Pantry
6. Organize Your Food Containers
Pair up your plastic storage containers with their matching lids. And then discard any extra mismatched lids or containers. This method works well for storing leftovers and also helps you find the container and lid easily next time you need to put away food.
7. Clean Off the Grime From Your Kitchen
We try to keep the grime from accumulating in the first place. But when we can’t avoid it, there aren’t many kitchen cleaning products that can break through the hard-to-reach, grimy crevices of our tiled countertops. While we love a good, old-fashioned scrub — and are happy to get our hands dirty — we prefer to clean our kitchen with an environmentally conscious product that doesn’t contain harsh chemicals. With just your household materials mix up a paste of baking soda and water, then scrub the dirty grout with it. You’ll need some extra muscle but it’s worth it to see the kitchen looking bright and sparkly in the end.
8. Take it Step By Step
Everybody needs a clutter-free space to relax and unwind after a long day at work or school. A neat kitchen is very important in the overall look of your entire house. But decluttering your kitchen may seem like an overwhelming task when there are so many things to organize. Try taking on the kitchen cabinets and the pantry area first. Start with a shelf or two so you can take care of the most visible items , then move to the shelves in the corners and then keep going.
The kitchen is the center of activity in many modern homes. It is the space where family and friends gather, cook, and share a meal. It is also no wonder that the kitchen can become a hectic and cluttered place. By taking a few minutes per day to get your kitchen organized and clean, you’ll feel less stressed while preparing meals and cleaner while doing so. The biggest trick to decluttering your kitchen? Start small — one drawer at a time, one shelf at a time — and make it fun!
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