The kitchen is one of the most-used rooms in the house; it’s often the hub of conversation, the center of get-togethers, and the location for grabbing good food and drink. By default, then, it also has the most potential for clutter – those utilizing the kitchen are often busy or in a hurry so naturally, clean-up can often fall to the wayside.
Make 2019 the year of top-level organization for your kitchen! There are tons of awesome trends these days that offer storage and organization solutions that are super classy, super cute, and super efficient. While it helps to have dozens of kitchen cabinets from wholesale suppliers filling your kitchen walls in order to have an uncluttered space, it’s not practical for many people. Not to worry!
Here are four outstanding tips you can get started on today to organize and declutter your kitchen in 2020:
#1 Have Items Pull Double Duty:
Get a little creative and have certain items be used for more than one task; this can potentially eliminate a lot of items in your kitchen! For example, use a strainer or colander to steam vegetables; use a wooden cutting board to protect surfaces from hot pans instead of using a trivet, or use silicone hot pads as trivets, too.
Working and cooking in the kitchen can require dozens upon dozens of different gadgets, appliances, tools, utensils, and more – there is no way you can keep so many things nice and tidy in a kitchen. Expand your items’ skill sets and branch out with the kitchen duties they do to minimize the “I-have-it-because-one-day-I-might-need-it” clutter.
#2 Get in the Zone:
That is, different areas of the kitchen serve different purposes, and relevant items should be kept in those zones, close to where they’ll be used. Cooking tools like pots, spices, oils, knives, and cutting boards should be kept near the stove (the cooking zone).
Spinners, plastic containers, and colanders should be kept in lower cabinets near the sink (wash zone). Having everything grouped in their respective zones will help minimize traveling all over the room to accomplish tasks and will reduce your chances of dropping or spilling things, too.
#3 Kitchen Prime Real Estate:
This would be your counterspace! Be sure that you give items you use every day priority on the counters, and tuck everything else away. Infrequently used items need to be stowed on higher shelves and in out-of-the-way cabinets or tossed away altogether.
Many people keep a toaster on the counter, but if you rarely make toast, put it away instead, opening up counter space for items you do regularly use, such as your coffee maker or microwave. A good rule of thumb is that if you haven’t used it in the last three months, get rid of it!
#4 Look to Other Rooms for Inspiration:
There are tons of office supplies out there, for example, that are designed for organization that can actually be great in a kitchen. A paper sorter is ideal for storing cutting boards and baking sheets upright. This not only keeps them organized, but it also makes them all easier to find and grab without a ton of ruckus.
Take a look at your refrigerator – how many magnets do you have holding tons of papers of various sorts? Line the inside of a cabinet door with a light thin piece of sheet metal and move those magnets and their captive papers there to get that unsightly clutter off the fridge.
There are tons of other ideas and tricks you can use to keep your kitchen organized and clutter-free; be sure to really do a deep cleaning of your refrigerator and toss everything that is old or isn’t used. The same can be said for glasses and dishes in the cabinets; do you really need thirty dinner plates for you, your spouse, and two kids?
Washing dishes little by little as they become dirty instead of gradually filling the dishwasher will probably show you that you don’t need nearly that many. Have you ever used the giant bread maker Aunt Josie gave you for Christmas three years ago? How about the microwave egg cooker from Grandma Kate?
Let things go that occupy too much space to justify their use, and you’ll be well on your way to having your kitchen become the great room it was meant to be – clutter-free, too!