If your kitchen is anything like mine, then your food, utensils, appliances, and other kitchen gadgets can get out of hand pretty quickly. Until a few weeks ago, I was at the point at which I just tossed everything kitchen-related into any cabinet with extra room. Finding anything was a pain!
Thus, with my husband out of the house for a few days in the middle of January, my daughter and I set to work cleaning and organizing the kitchen. We decided on doing a lot of stuff that can help to keep the kitchen maintained. For instance, we can start by hiring a Wood Floor Cleaning service to restore the floors in the kitchen and then move to cabinets, kitchen organizers, shelves, and more. Here are my general tips for making your kitchen more livable.
Throw Out Old Food
I will admit that I threw out a lot of old food during my recent kitchen capers. Packets of instant pudding with a “best by” date of 2008 are questionable at best. The container of some sort of unidentifiable powder also ended up in the garbage can. Anything rancid or stale got the boot. I threw out almost an entire garbage bag of old food. When you start cleaning out your kitchen, start by tossing anything too old to safely consume.
Empty Cabinets and Drawers
One of the biggest complaints that I have about my kitchen cabinets is the depth. The cabinets in the corners reach all the way back to the outside wall. As a result of extra space, food and kitchen utensils often get pushed back and lost in the dark depths. Thus, to make organizing my kitchen easier, I emptied all my cabinets and drawers. Pulling everything out also allowed me to more easily survey what I had and group similar items accordingly.
Purge
After you throw out any inedible food and empty your cabinets and drawers, purge! I went over everything that I owned in my kitchen and donated anything that I did not use, did not ever plan to use, or did not need. The perfectly good saucers that double as little plates to which I no longer have any matching mugs? Donated. The plethora of plastic cups from fast food restaurants? Recycled. Anything broken and unfixable? Trashed. Unless it could be fixed by https://www.shane-appliance.com/ (or other experts), and I have simply put it off then it has gone. In addition to the trash bag of expired food that I tossed, I was also able to get rid of an entire bag of kitchen stuff. Most of my unwanted treasures were still usable, so I donated the bag to a local thrift store.
Group
Once I purged anything that I did not need cluttering up my kitchen, I started grouping similar items. Instead of keeping canned foods in three different cabinets, all of my cans are now neatly organized inside a single cabinet. Cookie cutters and cake pans now all live in the same cabinet. Spoons and spatulas are easily accessible in a single drawer next to the stove. Grouping similar items in a single location allows me to find the kitchen gear that I am looking for more quickly.
Maximize Space
As I previously mentioned, there are some left-out, weird spaces in the kitchen. For instance, the walls seem to be empty–they look like blank canvases. That is why I decided to get a bit creative with them. The result of this: I have now considered mounting my cups and soup bowls (that have handles) here. For this, I just needed something like Sugru adhesive. Finally, the blank canvases have a few spots and blotches of paint that look creative.
However, this is not the only change I brought about in my kitchen to maximize space. I also did something with the cabinets, primarily because the space in my corner kitchen cabinet often becomes home to ancient food. Stuff too easily gets pushed back into the corners, lost until I pull everything about of the cabinets again years down the road. Thus, to better maximize my space, I decided to place a few larger but less frequently used items in the corners of my cabinets. I can still easily see these larger items but no longer have to worry about smaller foods or utensils getting lost in the dark depths. Plus, putting some bigger but infrequently used items in the corners freed up more valuable space in the fronts of my cabinets. I also put less used items in harder-to-reach cabinets, such as the wine and champagne glasses that now live in the cabinet over my refrigerator. People with small kitchens often prefer to remodel them in order to maximize space. Renovating the kitchen offers the scope to include more storage areas such as under the slab or below the oven. To do that, one can contact kitchen remodeling contractors in their area who can modify the kitchen in order to give it a fresh look and generate more storage space.
Organize
I also used a variety of smaller containers to better organize my kitchen. Instead of tossing all my spices on a shelf in a cabinet, I used some old cardboard trays to contain the small containers. Bags of dried beans and rice now also live in some pretty baskets. Not only does utilizing smaller containers keep your kitchen organized, but containers can also make storing more unusually shaped items easier. I can toss my bags of beans in a smaller container inside a cabinet without having to worry about the bag falling out or taking up unnecessary space.
My kitchen is now clean and organized. Foods and utensils that I use frequently are neatly organized in accessible places in my drawers and cabinets. Less frequently used items are tucked away in harder to reach corners and spaces. I can easily see when I need more canned carrots or coffee. Most importantly, my kitchen is free of garbage and clutter, making planning and cooking meals much more enjoyable!
Image Credits
Organized Food Cabinets 2014 Heather Johnson
Organized Canned Food and Kitchen Appliances Cabinets 2014 Heather Johnson
Organized Kitchen Cupboard 2014 Heather Johnson
Organized Baking Supplies 2014 Heather Johnson
Bottom of Organized Kitchen Pantry 2014 Heather Johnson
Top of Organized Kitchen Pantry 2014 Heather Johnson
