Getting Rid of Kitchen Clutter
An ideal kitchen is neat, organized, and efficient. It is filled with a variety of tools and accessories but those objects are not clutter, because they are all necessary, and placed in an appropriate spot, where they can easily be reached without getting in the way. Such a kitchen will work with the chef, wrapping around them, lending them whatever appliance they might need without any fuss or confusion.
That’s the ideal, but throughout the course of our lives, the ideal often falls apart. As we are seduced by objects of beauty and promise, decorating ideas that seem brilliant at the time, appliances that will make our lives easier, and tools that seem so very chic, we slowly destroy the perfect dream of a completely efficient kitchen, filling the space instead with clutter, chaos, and needless items that detract from the purpose of the overall space.
However you can oppose the forces of chaos that seek to destroy your perfect kitchen. You just have to have a discerning eye, and the ability to make choices. Some items will have to be removed; others will have to be discarded. Not everything has a place when room is limited, or efficiency is at stake.
One way to make this process a little easier is to regulate it. Set it up so that every 3 months, you take a few minutes, and look at your kitchen with a discerning eye. Take a look at the various objects within the space, and try to figure out if there is anything that you haven’t actually used in the last 90 days. Those are the objects that should be placed in a box, and then set aside.
You don’t necessarily have to start throwing things out right away. Once you’ve set the nonessentials in a box, and hidden that receptacle in a closet or on a shelf, you should make a list of everything that you removed and hang it from the fridge. Then, each day as you prepare your families meals, you can look at the list and decide if there is anything that you want to pull out of storage. When the next 3 month period has passed, anything that you haven’t used from that box should go on ebay, be set aside for a yard sale, or should simply be tossed.
Removing clutter is about more than just getting rid of things. There is also an important organizational component to this process. Even if you only have a scant smattering of accessories and appliance, if they aren’t organized in a neat and efficient manner, their going to end up just being piles of useless junk that you have to sift through to find anything that you need.
Racks, shelves, dividers, and bins should all be used to separate items by necessity and function. Small kitchen tables should be utilized as work and storage space, both above and below. Once organized, everything will fit more neatly and easily into the space, instantly eliminating any clutter problems that you might have been having.
It is important to institute a system of organization in the kitchen, which not only eliminates useless, and semi useless objects, but which also takes necessities, and places them in spots where they can easily be retrieved. In this way you can maximize the efficiency in this space, while also removing any unnecessary items which might otherwise get in your way.
