If your kitchen is a catastrophe, you’ve come to the right place!
How can you ever expect to host a killer dinner party, or whip up an exciting new recipe for your family, if your kitchen is an ergonomic nightmare? These are my top ten hacks for decluttering your kitchen. They’ll make life that much easier next time you start dinner!
1.Re-Think Your Appliances
Obviously, everyone needs at least a kettle and a toaster. What I’m talking about re-thinking is the bread maker, the rice cooker, the popcorn maker, the deep fryer, the slow cooker – all these appliances are useful in themselves, but they are bulky and take up space. Firstly, check that they all work. If you must check to see if it works, then you aren’t using it enough. If any appliances are broken, bin them. If the bread maker was a wedding gift that you haven’t ever used, it’s time to donate it to charity or give it to a willing friend – because all its doing at your place is cluttering up the kitchen!
2.Cull Your Tupperware
Tupperware play a large role in an organised kitchen – but not when they aren’t in pairs and are strewn all over the place. Pull them all out and match up all containers to their lids. If components are lost, cracked or totally broken, it’s time they were thrown out.
3.Donate Your Old Cook Books
Cook books can give your kitchen that lovely, rustic feel if they are displayed neatly on a shelf. If they are shoved in a cupboard collecting dust, you’re better off donating them to charity. If you like only one or two recipes in a entire book, just take a picture of them or have those pages scanned. Likewise, recipes that you’ve ripped out of magazines can go in a dedicated folder.
4.Get Rid of Duplicates
We are hunters & gatherers by nature. Over the years, people will have given you gifts and you will have purchased utensils and cutlery that has caught your eye. But no one needs six wooden spoons or three sets of dinner plates. Take stock of what you have duplicates of and take half of it to charity.
5.It’s Time to Get Real
If you KNOW that you hate baking cakes and that you avoid it like the plague, then why are baking tins cluttering up your cupboard? If cheese platters are not your thing, ask yourself why you’re hanging onto the one that you got from your work’s Secret Santa? It’s time to get real and get rid of bulky items that you know you’ll never use. This gives you the space to make proper use of the items you actually like. It’s a win-win situation.
6.Clear Those Countertops
If you can’t see your countertops for all the debris that’s covering them, the situation is dire. Countertops are work spaces for when you’re in your kitchen cooking, and they should be kept clean and clear accordingly. Try using one decorative bowl to hold everybody’s car keys and pens.
7.Pots & Pans
Sure, tiny weeny pots and pans are rather cute, but what are they good for? Medium and large pots and pans can do everything their smaller cousins can do, plus more! If you know you never use your small pots or pans, it’s time they got the boot.
8.Under the Sink
Buy a large caddy, and use it hold all the chemicals that live under the sink. Now, you can easily transport the whole lot from room to room!
9.Once a Month, Clean Your Fridge
Throw out any perished food and give your fridge a good scrub once a month. The fridge gets opened dozens of times a day in a busy household, it makes sense for it to be clean and tidy.
10.Be Ruthless
Lastly, be ruthless. Dirty, ripped tea towels, cans of tinned prunes that you’re never going to eat, anything you don’t use or is broken, get rid of it. It’s only taking up space and contributing to the clutter in your kitchen.
