“I am going to make everything around me beautiful – that will be my life” ~Elsie de Wolfe
Now that you’ve finished decluttering your kitchen, it’s time to organize it all! When we decluttered your kitchen, I had you think about how often you are in your kitchen and how much you enjoy being there. This is important to know how to let the kitchen work for you. Do you have the answers to the 8 questions nearby? Read it through and feel the intention of those answers. Because today I guide you trough on how to organize your kitchen for ultimate efficiency!
Organize your kitchen
Organizing should make your life easier; we will consider the best locations to store stuff. You only have to think of a permanent storage place once. And when you have assigned this storage place, it’s easy to keep your home nice and tidy. Organizing your home creates joyful living.
Clutter
When you have housemates, make sure that everyone in the household knows where things should go. This is an essential part of keeping your home nice and tidy; clutter is caused by not putting things back where they belong. The 2 main reasons for clutter are:
- It’s too much hassle to get an item back to its original place
- It’s unclear where an item belongs
Start thinking of places where the items are most convenient
Ultimate efficiency
Start thinking of places where the items are most convenient. Ask yourself what you use your glasses for most of the time. Is it for beverages next to the fridge? Find a storage place close to it. Do you have a lot of mugs and cups for coffee and tea? Find a cupboard or drawer close to the kettle. Your plates are most conveniently stored closest to your stove or oven; when you finish cooking, you can just open your cupboard or drawer and are ready to serve.
Guidelines
Here are 4 guidelines that you can follow for ultimate efficiency in your kitchen:
- The same sort of items live in a similar location, close to each other
- Store the items close to the part in the kitchen where they are used most
- Try to keep your kitchen counter as empty as possible
- Take stuff out of their boxes, like your pasta maker or food processor.
Stuff on the counter vs. in cupboards and drawers
Many people have their dish soap, brush and sponge on the kitchen counter. First of all – none of these items will look aesthetically nice (mostly), second of all – it looks like clutter.
Let your sponge and/or brush dry after doing the dishes and then store it in the cupboard under the sink. You can create some shelves, or you keep the items on a tray so it’s easy to take out when you need it.
Organize your herbs and spices
Most likely, you keep your salt, pepper, olive oil, and other herbs next to your stove. I hope you will save those now. Your kitchen counter is to prepare your food. The area next to the stove will be splashed with food and oil and the things you keep there will often be sticky because of it. Olive oil is best to store in a dark place; so assign a cupboard close to your stove for all your herbs, spices, and oils. For easy use, you can store them on a tray, inside your cupboard. When you start cooking, you only have to slide out your tray.
In our home, we have drawers underneath our stove. In the top drawer, we keep our plates, bowls, spices, and oils. So when we start cooking, we just use the spices from the drawer, without taking the whole basket out. It’s really easy!
Optimum stacking
In order to save some space in your cupboards and drawers, it’s helpful to place some items on top of each other. When you have a few of the same bowls, they can be stacked together. But also, when you have two pots or pans that fit into each other, that is a great storage space saver!
Horizontal vs. vertical
Sheet pans and casseroles are stored best when you can place those vertically, like picking a book. When they’re stored horizontally, on top of each other, you can create a situation where it’s a hassle when you need the one at the bottom, and this becomes clutter. It also leads to feeling annoyed and might even stop you from cooking things in the oven.
If you keep it in the box because you think it will get you more money when you sell it – let go of that thought.
Boxes
Please take your kitchen appliances like your blender, your food processor, etc. out of their box. Free them from their cardboard prison. When you keep these items in a box, it will only create an extra effort to take it out of your cabinet and it will ensure that you will use it less. As mentioned earlier: this is a perfect example of creating too much hassle to either use it, or to get it back in its original place. And that creates clutter.
If you keep it in the box because you think it will get you more money when you sell it – let go of that thought. The box will get dirty, old, and it will deteriorate after some time. It will not be of more value. You can keep it clean and tidy without the boxes and you will use your item more often, which will bring more joy in the kitchen.
Make it a habit to clean up whilst cooking
Ideal habits
Another great tip for keeping your kitchen clean is to make it a habit to clean up whilst cooking. When you have finished using a machine, put it back where it lives and place the parts that need to be cleaned directly in the sink or dishwasher. You can do the dishes and clean the counter while things are cooking. In this way, your kitchen is immediately clean and you can actually enjoy your meal and some relaxing time after, instead of having this mess in the kitchen after the meal.
Conscious choices
In the previous blog post, we made conscious choices to let the products that we kept reflect our lifestyle and needs. It could be that you noticed that you have too much of one item, and/or too little of another. You could ask yourself the question “How many [XX item] do I really need?”
The essentials
Just like in your closet, we need to think about the essentials in your kitchen. These are the items that reflect your lifestyle and are defined by 8 questions. It could be that you feel like you still miss something. Or maybe you find out that you actually want to invest in an item of higher quality, or bigger, or smaller even.
Example. Let’s say that you love baking on the weekends. But you’ve learned that the quality of your food processor is poor and this actually keeps you from using it and therefore keeps you from doing something that brings value to your life: baking. This is a perfect reason to invest in a food processor of quality.
There are some creative ways to budget for quality
Quality and budget
Quality is something that could bring a lot of value to your life. It’s important to do your research; rely on your friends’ experiences, read several reviews online on different websites, and go to multiple stores to try things out.
Sure, not everyone has the budget for high quality. But there are some creative ways of working around that. Does a friend or a neighbor have this item? Maybe you can share, or at least you can try it several times in your own home, within your own time, with your own recipes.
Second-hand items
Nowadays you can find quite a lot of second-hand items because so many people have excess stuff (and there might be someone out there who does not think the item you want is essential in their life). You could turn it into a small hobby and give yourself some time to find a good deal. Otherwise, it’s also a great birthday, anniversary, or Christmas present. To stay with the example of the food processor, you could even ask if your friends want to gift it together.
Sell or swap
Perhaps you found you have excess stuff or items you don’t actually use. These things may be of value to others. You can sell some of your unwanted things and this creates an extra budget to buy something of quality. Or a swap party might be a good idea!
Have you re-found some items in the kitchen that are of value to you? Will you replace an item by something of higher quality?
Thank you for reading.
We’re in this together.
~
