Always a struggle
Kitchen always seems like an area that constantly lacks organization. The cupboards are usually so messy, especially the ones we store our snacks, tea bags and coffee capsules in. Pots and pans never have their own place and are always piled up in the counters the way that you’re afraid to open them, anticipating that all your kitchen wear will burst out of them the moment you attempt to open the door. The worst thing is that it gets hard to find the item (the spice, a favorite cup, a small pot you haven’t used in ages) in our own kitchens. And, it just becomes uncomfortable to cook in there. Sometimes we even struggle to find the tiniest spot on our overloaded countertops to place a cutting board to chop up the veggies for the meal we’re preparing. Moreover, the less organized our kitchen is, the more we have to clean up after each cooking session. That’s when you understand that your kitchen needs to be re-organized right now.
Planning a kitchen organization may be quite exciting. It’s like playing our favorite childhood décor games, but in real life. It’s an amazing opportunity to introduce some changes into your kitchen storage system, replace some old items, add new decorations, pick up a couple of new mugs or pots to fit the new look of the kitchen. Moving is probably the most perfect time to organize a kitchen, as you can start completely fresh and do whatever you want with a new canvass. The same applies to remodeling.
But, you definitely don’t want to postpone kitchen organization until you move houses or commit to the throughout remodeling. As kitchen is probably the second used place in the house (after the bathroom) and it involves everything connected with food, it’s rather important to keep it organized in order to ensure that the things you store at your pantry don’t go out of date by the time you use them, that the snack cupboard doesn’t turn into a mix of different nuts, cereals and cookie crumbs, that the pots stay in the easily accessible place and that you’re able to cook in your own kitchen without having to conduct a massive cleanup on your counters and near the oven.
An organized kitchen saves your time and effort. But as we continuously buy and run out of groceries, purchase new cookware, decorative pieces and even some technology, we have to keep putting effort to maintain our kitchens organized all the time. And, it’s much easier to do that when your kitchen is initially organized. Then, the only thing you’ll have to do after preparing a meal or having a dinner with your family is to clean up that minimum aftermath and put away the things in their designed places. And it will be much easier to grab a plate or a pot from a shelve or a special pot holder in your counter the next time you need it, as you won’t have to dig in a rattling pile of pots to pull out the only one you want.
As they say, organized house is the basis of the organized life. So, why don’t we start organizing from the kitchen?
There’re two ways to do that. The first way is to hire and interior designer to conduct a full kitchen reorganization and redecoration (visit HireRush.com to find a local professional). But you can totally deal with it on your own. And, if you need some help, here’re several kitchen organization tips you might easily implement in your kitchen at the minimal cost.
Consult with an interior designer
Organized kitchen tips
- Attack the hardest spot – pantry. If you have a small kitchen and no separate pantry, you’re most likely using a cabinet or a counter for that matter. But that kind of pantry is quite difficult to maintain. That’s why I suggest that you should hire a handyman and ask him to install a narrow pull-out pantry between the fridge and counters. It will have a tone of space, as it will look just like a proper shelving unit tugged alongside of the fridge. Easy access is another benefit of this kind of pantry.
- Organize the food in your pantry. Do through the cans and other foods regularly to see if something has gone out of date or if something needs to be used as soon as possible not to be thrown away several months later. Storing the new cans of the product behind the ones you already have will help you prevent such situations.
- Store the cans of the same foods in the rows, so that each kind of product remains visible. Purchase several woven or metal storage baskets and draw dividers to store your spices, tea bags and snacks. Keep the dry food in plastic or glass containers. Attach the chalkboard labels to them to be able to change the name of the products you put in them.
- Purchase separate plastic or metal containers for dog/cat food and store them at the bottom shelves of the pantry or on its floor. They will keep pet’s food fresh longer than the bags it comes in.
- Store similar foods and items next to each other (cereal boxes near the salt, sugar, rice containers and pasta packs). Group canned fruits and vegetables. Store them beside the pickled stuff.
- Purchase several big baskets or bins for your pantry to keep some vegetables (like potatoes, beaks, onions and carrots) in them, as some vegetables are supposed to be stored at the room temperature. A separate bin for spare kitchen towels will be great as well.
- Clear out the countertops. Make sure that only kitchen appliances and a couple of décor pieces remain on them. Those could be decorative salt and sugar jars or spinning spice stand, or a wooden spoon and spatula holder. Nothing else.
- Attach utility hooks to the working surface on the kitchen walls (between the counters and the cabinets) to hang your kitchen utensils and a couple of cutting boards. This will free some space in the drawers and provide quick and easy access to the most used utensils. Attach a separate row of hooks to the back of your fridge or one of the cabinets and devote it to the kitchen towels and pot holders. They won’t wallow all over the kitchen and they will also dry faster while hanging. Those hooks often come with suction cups, so you won’t even have to drive any holes in your walls.Complement the hooks with a magnetic knife strip if you don’t have small kids that might reach them.
- Organize the pots and pans. Put them into the pot holders if you prefer storing them inside the cupboards or counters. Don’t place the non-stick items inside one another without proper pot and pan separators. This way you’ll save the counter space and prevent the non-stick coating from scratching. Attach the pot lid organizer to the inner side of the cupboard’s/counter’s doors to keep the lids organized and make the full use of the storage space.
- Another way to store your pots and pans is hang them on a special rack, attached to the wall in front of your window and above your kitchen sink. Placing a plate drainer below this rack will be really comfortable for those, who have a sink near the window and don’t have a cabinet with the drainer right above it. This will make the dishwashing process much easier.
- Place the most used pans and pots in front of the others so that you’re able to grab them without sorting out all your cookware. Do the same to your cups and plates. For instance, there’re 4 people in your family. Place 4 plates, 4 bowls and 4 cups at the bottom shelve of the cabinet and remove other dishes to the higher shelves.
- Attach a sponge holder to the inner side of your sink to keep your sponges, dishwashing brush, soap and gloves in it. They won’t lie about the sink area anymore.
- Find a cookbook holder or organizer to be able to check in with your recipes while preparing a meal.
- Don’t forget to go through your kitchen drawers and organize them with special plastic dividers to separate the forks, table and tea spoons, kitchen utensils, etc. Clean your junk drawer and get rid of everything you don’t need.
- Make a cooking station out of a cake stand and place it near the stove. Keep your salt, favorite spices, olive oil and other similar ingredients used to make almost every dish not to look for them while cooking. Learn more about house organization
