The kitchen is such a sacred space for all of us! It’s often the center of the home, where all the family gather, and the first place you go to when waking up in the morning. It is essential that counter tops are kept clean and uncluttered, and that you’re able to find things in your kitchen with ease.
It is of the utmost importance that dishes always be cleaned, because leaving them in the sink attracts bugs, and nobody wants to wake up to a dirty sink. Also, all old food must be thrown out of the fridge, at least every 2 weeks. The following are 10 great tips to declutter your kitchen, so that this sacred space always looks uncluttered, fresh and clean!
Many businesses today will give you their details on a magnet, and out of habit, it’s common to just place them on the front or side of your fridge. However, with the internet today, you really don’t need these magnets cluttering up your visual space. If you need any contact details of any business today, including take-out menus, you just need to go online.
If you have any magnets on the fridge containing information you don’t need, let them go. However, if you like to travel and keep magnets of places you’ve visited do so, but in a neat and orderly fashion. You may want to group “travel” magnets of the same color together, and organize them in a rainbow scheme going from red to violet.
It’s super-important to have your cutlery drawer organized. You can easily pick up a cutlery tray that you can place in your top drawer. You can pick up a cheap one in plastic, or a more expensive one in stainless steel – that will always last. This is great as you’ll be able to access your tablespoons, teaspoons, knives and forks easily.
Knife blocks take up a lot of space on the kitchen counter and are actually quite old fashioned these days. Also, they are hard to keep sanitized and perfectly clean. When you wash wooden knife blocks with water, the wood will start to crack. It is also exceptionally hard to keep bacteria, dust, and dirt away from the knife slots.
The best solution is to throw these away and replace them with stainless steel magnetic knife holders. These are really handy and can either be placed on your fridge or against the wall. They come in different sizes, such as a 10-inch, 17-inch and a mega 24-inch, allowing you to keep all your knives safely stored against a magnetic bar that holds them securely in place!
You may have a whole range of plastic and glass containers to keep things in, and that’s fine. However, often these containers don’t have matching lids, or they’ll be so old that they actually smell a bit funky. Some plastic containers may even be scratched or discolored due to food that was kept there, like curries covered in turmeric.
The best thing to do is collect all your containers that are scratched, don’t smell good, and don’t have lids and recycle them!
Have you ever traveled to a farmer’s market and picked up different sauces and dressings that you don’t quite like? Well, there’s no point keeping them if you’re not going to use them no matter how expensive they were. Go through them and tase them on a teaspoon; if you still dislike the taste, chuck them. It’s also important to go through all your sauce’s and dressing’s expiry dates, and if they’re past them throw away all the contents, and recycle all the bottles.
If you have small appliances that you just have no use for, it’s better to give them to a friend, or sell them, than keep them cluttering up space in your kitchen cupboards. You may have followed a special recipe once that required a special small appliance to make it, and used it once. If you have any small appliances that you haven’t used in over a year, it’s better to give them to people that’ll love using them!
Most of us have a drawer full of dish towels that we’ve kept for years that we keep rewashing. However, many are stained and have holes in them. It’s better to keep them uniform and get a set of 4 or 5 matching dish towels of equal length, and similar colors and patterns, that are new. As for the old dish towels, it’s better to throw them away.
You may have a whole bunch of cookbooks with recipes that look really delicious, but if you don’t ever use them, what’s the point of letting them occupy so much of your kitchen counter space? Rather sell them, or give them away to friends that will love them. It’s a really great way of sorting out which recipes you love from certain cookbooks that you use all the time! Also, with today’s modern technology, just keep your laptop or tablet (or even smart phone) close by with YouTube on to follow the latest recipes!
When you order take-out pizzas, Chinese food or even burgers, you will always get extra ketchup, mayonnaise and chopsticks. You may want to keep a few pairs of chopsticks in your cutlery drawer, but it’s best to get rid of all the little sachets of ketchup and mayonnaise for good. These all have expiration dates, and you don’t want to mistakenly use them when they shouldn’t be used. Rather stock up your fridge with a bottle of ketchup and mayonnaise so that you always have them when you need them!
Spices are one of the most wonderful things about cooking – they enhance the taste of any dish! It’s really important to have an ample supply of paprika, cumin, coriander, turmeric, basil, thyme, and any other spice you may love. The best way to store them is in cylindrical glass bottles that are labeled with white labels and black sharpie. Take all your spices and place them into these bottles, and label them as you go. You can store them together by color. Just keep note that any spices that haven’t been used for over a year must be replaced, as they lose their freshness, aroma and flavor after this time.
A decluttered kitchen will really change the way your home feels, since the kitchen is the heart of the home! Take the time to follow these 10 top tips, one by one, to organize and declutter your kitchen. Once all of it is done, you’ll realize that your kitchen looks lighter and fresher, with a more minimalistic appearance, so that every time you step into it, it brings you joy! You can now cook easily, and find everything in a jiffy, in a clean and organized space that suits your culinary needs!
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