How to Declutter Your Kitchen
Don’t worry! Decluttering your kitchen is easier than you think.
You don’t have to purge everything you have. You get organized by following just a few basic steps.
The key to organizing your space is to ask yourself the right questions. Every homeowner has their own threshold for how much of their valuable kitchen equipment they’re willing to part with.
If you want kitchen organization ideas that open more counter space, then ask yourself these essential questions about how to declutter your kitchen.
What Do You Use Most in the Kitchen?
If you’ve maxed out your cabinet space and pantry, or don’t even have a pantry at all, then you’re probably going to have to keep at least some kitchen items out in the open. So embrace it! A great kitchen organization idea is to figure out what you do most in the kitchen, and make stations, or decorate with what you have.
Kitchen Organization Ideas
Create a Coffee Station
Do you make a cup of joe or espresso every morning? For some, morning coffee or tea is a minimum. Nowadays, homeowners spend more time at home. Afternoon and weekend brews are common!
So why put the coffeemaker away? It can be a real pain to locate a spoon, coffee grounds and mugs. Adjust these items for easy access. Place keurigs, ground coffee and mugs between the kitchen refrigerator and sink for easy access to water and milk.
Hang Pots and Pans
If you have a nice set of pots and pans, consider hanging them in full view. For good measure, they don’t actually create a decluttered kitchen look. However, if you’re at capacity in your cabinets and pantry, pots and pans take up the bulk of the space. Lifting them clears space inside your kitchen cabinets.
Create a Smoothie Station
As homeowners spend more time at home, and become more health conscious, many have powerful blenders that can whip up amazing smoothies. So go ahead and keep it out! Plus, as a bonus, it will make you use it more.
What Can You Purge to Declutter Your Kitchen?
For many homeowners that have a cluttered kitchen, this is the dreaded question: What can I get rid of? Attachment to kitchen cookware and utensils is common. Homeowners feel almost completely debilitated when faced with this question. Let’s dive in together and stir up some ideas that will help you decide what to keep, and what to toss.
Eliminate the Extra’s
This is where homeowners might get in trouble if items hold sentimental value. But, how long has it been since you used that 25 year-old crock pot? Have you ever used that giant, glass salad bowl? If you haven’t used these in years, it’s time to get rid of them or pack them away in a basement or garage.
Eliminate Duplicates
Duplicate sets of silverware, and pots and pans are common, but in fact, quite unnecessary.
If you’re active in the kitchen and consider yourself a chef, then you’re an expert dishwasher too (if we’re talking about how to declutter your kitchen, we have to mention that cleaning dirty dishes is a must).
How many meals require more than one skillet? How many different kinds of the same size do you really need? Keep only enough for when company comes over. Say “goodbye” to the duplicates.
Where Do You Put Everything in Your Kitchen?
For the orderly people, having food in one cabinet, pots and pans in another, then even more food and pots in the pantry, would make their brains explode. We’ll stop short of saying there’s no wrong way to organize a kitchen, but there are certainly methods to organize that anyone can rally behind.
Organize Your Kitchen Cabinets
If you don’t have a pantry, then cabinets are your primary source of storage. A very popular 2021 kitchen trend is to build more cabinets. Yes, add more cabinets.
Since we don’t all have the space or money to build more cabinets, be sure to maximize the space that you do have by fitting items together like a puzzle. In other words, put tall items on shelves beneath a high ceiling, etc.
Never place heavy items at the top of your wall cabinets, nor the items that you use the most. Put your most-often used spices, plates, drinkware, etc on the most accessible shelves of your cabinets.
Move Kitchen Equipment into your Pantry
If you have a pantry, bravo, as some homeowners must live without this marvel of storage space. For those who do have a kitchen pantry, they aren’t being utilized as strongly as they could be.
If your shelves are too far apart vertically, consider adjusting them to the height that accommodates your canned goods or cereal boxes. You may want to install another shelf entirely.
If you have deep shelves that make it hard to reach in back, install a kitchen cabinet slide-out organizer.
Organizing and Storing Food
Having your own kitchen organization ideas is very important, but some methods are actually contributing to the problem. You may have mason jars that contain every nut on earth, but they’re actually taking up a lot of space. Smaller tupperware, or even ziplock bags work as an alternative.
Likewise for decanted food, such as flour and sugar taking up counter space. They can be stored just as effectively in something smaller, or out of sight.
Hopefully, you’ve found kitchen organization ideas that will help declutter your kitchen. Kitchens are so diverse and shaped so differently that it’s hard to know what will work for everyone.
Are you unhappy with the layout of your kitchen altogether? Get help finding the right layout, appliances and all other kitchen essentials that fit you best with Little Green Kitchens.