Organized A to Z Blog

Organize Your Kitchen

May 2, 2011

The kitchen is typically the social center of your home, which means it can also attract clutter like no other room in your house! Besides being the place where you prepare meals for your family, it can also be a place to snack, entertain, read mail, do homework, or sit and chat. With all of this activity, it can easily collect coats, backpacks, unopened mail, newspapers, unused appliances, gadgets, and various odds and ends.

When clutter seems to be taking over your kitchen, it’s time to take control. With the tips below you can manage your kitchen and ensure that it stays a warm, inviting, and organized place to both socialize and prepare meals.

1. Take inventory of gadgets and small appliances, and reduce. Take a good look at what you have, and make a list, if that helps. Are there duplicate items? Broken items? Appliances you don’t use?  Decide what you don’t need based on how many times you use it, and be honest! Now you can donate to a charity, give to a friend, sell it (eBay or garage sale) or throw away.
2. Clear the counter. As your primary workspace, you want your kitchen counter to be free of clutter and easy to clean. While you may have a lot of gadgets that do some neat things, you might not use them on a daily or even weekly basis. Think of your counter top as premium space and reserve it for your most essential kitchen tools – those you use every day. Find another home for the things you don’t use regularly.
3. Assign everything a home in as logical a place as possible. If items are used together, try to store them next to each other. For example, keep pots, pans and cooking utensils near the stove.
   

   Vision China White Wine Goblet Stemware Chest

   Store bowls and measuring cups/spoons together. Keep coffee and coffee filters near the coffeemaker.

4. Use hard to reach cabinets and shelves to store seldom used items. Specialty dishes and appliances, like the china you only use during the holidays or the large roaster you only use for big parties, can go on high shelves or in the back of cabinets. You can even store these items in a different area, such as the basement, attic, guest room closet, or in a box in the garage.
5. Use under-cabinet storage tools to maximize your use of space for larger items. Pullout racks and shelves can help you use the dead space at the back and eliminate the need to dig to find things. For tall cabinets, add racks and shelves to take advantage of vertical space.
6. 

   Wood Expandable Kitchen Drawer Dividers

   Install drawer dividers or utensil trays to organize silverware, knives, and small gadgets. This allows you to break up your kitchen drawers both vertically and horizontally, keeping like items grouped together and easier to find.

7. Clean your pantry. Empty each cabinet, tossing items that are old, stale, or that you won’t use, and place items you are keeping on your counter. If your realize you have 8 cans a green beans, consider donating a couple to the local food pantry. Once you know what you have, you can organize your pantry.
8. Group foods together in categories for easy access — cereals, snacks, canned goods, baking goods, oils/vinegars, spices, etc. Use containers to keep smaller items together, such as drink packets, tea bags, granola bars, pudding and Jello boxes, seasonings, and gravy and sauce mixes.
9. 

   Monthly Wall Calendar

   Create a family command center, even if this is in a different room. This is where you can store your family’s calendar, important information, opened mail that requires actions (bills, RSVPs), notepads, pens and pencils, etc. Now that you have a home for these items, get in the habit of putting items away and filing papers instead of letting them collect on the kitchen counter.

10. Create a place to hang coats, store backpacks, and keep shoes so these items don’t migrate to your kitchen. Again, this might be in a different room, but if these items have a home, there less likely to accumulate on the backs of chairs, on the table, or on the floor.

With all of the activity that happens in your kitchen, you’ll want to make sure every item in your kitchen has earned its right to take up your valuable space! Focus on organizing your kitchen for its primary purpose in your home, whether it’s baking and cooking, eating meals together as a family, or entertaining guests. Items that don’t serve this purpose can find a better home in your house, or can help someone one else more than they help you!

 

Filed under: In the Kitchen,Organizing Tips