Effective Ideas to Control Clutter in your Kitchen
Is it now a gigantic challenge just to get your hands on your frying pan or that measuring cup? Do you often find yourself having to dig through all sorts of other things you don’t need before you finally get what you’re looking for? Does it sometimes make you feel bad that the pattern you so spent time making with glass mosaic tiles is just covered up with all sorts of clutter?
If you use your kitchen almost everyday, it is highly probable that you also mess it up on a daily basis. It is also highly probably that the lack of organization in your kitchen may be stressing you out. But don’t give up too quickly; there are tons of ways to put some order into your kitchen. Let’s talk about five!
1. Keep your Drawers Neat
Nobody wants to see their quartz tiles counter filled with heaps of clutter, so the tendency is for people to stuff things—at random—in kitchen drawers. The thing is, it can be quite frustrating to have to go through all the random items in your drawer, when you’re only looking for one thing. Sometimes it almost feels like a treasure hunt… without the treasure. There is nothing more time-consuming, too, than having to dig for your spatula while your pancakes burn to a crisp!
Truly, there is something about drawers that make us feel we can stuff things inside and not have to see them again. While that does seem like a great strategy to de-clutter at first, it definitely isn’t a long-term plan. Just wait until the next time you pull that drawer open!
The good news, though, is that there are many drawer organizers available in home improvement stores. The best way to avoid having your kitchen items (especially relatively smaller ones) swimming with all the rest of your belongings is to contain them in respective areas. That way, you can keep similar items together, gain easy access, and struggle no more!
2. Stack, stack, stack!
One difficulty with shelves and cabinets is that we tend to see them as single layers of space. Vertical space is often underestimated; this becomes especially true for cabinets with tall compartments, but house rather short items. Not only is this a cause for you to stuff your goods in other parts of the kitchen, it is also a very inefficient way of using your storage space.
So do you feel that your cabinets and shelves could still be maximized? Then it would be best to stack items on top of each other. Remember to keep the larger and heavier items at the bottom to avoid crushing the more delicate things.If you want to take this a step further, you could also use stackable baskets, boxes and trays to organize your shelves.
3. Invest in air-tight jars and plastic containers
Let’s just get this out there: most product packaging can be such space eaters! They may look great on grocery shelves, but once they’re in your pantry, they know just how to make your kitchen look like a total mess. Huge packets with just a few spoons of powder left tend to resemble clutter, and cereal boxes seem to enjoy jumping out of your cabinet every time you open it. Sometimes it is really better to get rid of the original packaging and transfer your dry goods to jars and plastic containers (and keep pests away in the process!)
It would be a great idea to have a good range of jars and plastic containers of different sizes. As your stocks of certain goods decrease, you can move them down to the smaller containers. Given that most containers are rectangular or square, arranging them in a very neat manner will be pretty easy.
4. Hanging out
Another wise way to make the most of your space, while keeping things organized, is to utilize your walls. Setting up racks and rods for your pots and pans, washcloths, and even spray bottles can help greatly when arranging the items in your kitchen.This works well, regardless of the material of your surface. Whether your walls are made of quartz tiles or stone tiles, racks can very well be installed!
You can start off by installing racks or hooks near your stove. This works great for hanging up your pots and pans, and maybe even your kitchen utensils. Instead of struggling to stack your pots and pans in a cabinet, this can save you the vertical space for other stackable items.
Next, you can use tension rods to organize the cabinets under your sink. Most spray bottles are constructed similarly, with the upper part of the bottle resembling hooks. This will very easily allow you to hang them on the tension rod, while the lower part of the cabinet can be reserved for other items.
Lastly, you may want to make the most of the surfaces inside your cabinets, such as the inner portions of the doors. You can either install hooks or use double-sided tape to affix additional compartments. This works best in the cabinets below your sink as well, so you can better organize your cleaning materials and tools.
5. Toss some things out!
Yes, that may have struck a chord and inspired some serious fear. However, the seasonal tossing is not only necessary, but it is also a great way to get some order back in your kitchen. There may be many things that were once useful, but are now just part of the clutter in your kitchen.
It would be best to set aside a few hours to go through everything in your kitchen. If it works better for you, you could list down all the things you find and keep an updated inventory. From there, you can decide on which things you may actually survive without… as painful and sentimental as that may sound.
Surely, there is no reason to lose hope if your kitchen is in a jumble. Hopefully, these tips have inspired you to spend a little time to sort things out. Just take it a step at a time—area by area—and you’ll have your kitchen back in orderly shape sooner than you think!
Photo Credits:
1/2/4: http://www.bhg.com/kitchen/storage/organization/affordable-kitchen-storage-ideas
3: http://www.thehouseofsmiths.com/2010/07/pantry-remix.html
5: http://www.realsimple.com/home-organizing/organizing/kitchen/well-organized-kitchen-10000001534510/page2.html