Picture your dream kitchen. I bet it’s not filled with clutter.
There is something refreshing and life giving about a clean, uncluttered kitchen. It sets the tone and culture for the home. It communicates calm and order. It promotes opportunity and possibility. It saves time and ensures cleanliness. The kitchen truly is the heart of your home.
But it is definitely one of the more difficult places in the home to keep uncluttered. There are several reasons for this:
- The kitchen is usually located in a high-traffic area of the home.
- The purpose of the room almost requires messes to be made during its use.
- The kitchen is often used as a collection area for odds and ends (such as mail).
When you think about your own kitchen, what kinds of cluttercome to mind? Are you seduced by shiny gadgets or specialized tools that aren’treally necessary? Do you have several duplicates from when you got married andmerged your kitchen supplies with your spouse’s? Have you accumulated anextensive cookbook collection even though you use only one or two favoritecookbooks regularly?
If your kitchen is anything like most people’s, you can getrid of a lot there.
Set Your KitchenGoals
Start by thinking about what you want your kitchen toaccomplish. Is it to enable you to cook tasty, healthy meals for your familywithout too much fuss? Is it to be easy to keep clean so it offers you a senseof peace and doesn’t waste your time? Is it to serve as a comfortable space forfamily or friends to keep you company as you cook?
Being clear about your kitchen goals is essential. Why? Because your goals become your guidelines. You use them every time you ask Do I really need this?
For example, if your goal is to cook meals without a lot of fuss, do you really need the Bluetooth-enabled food dehydrator, pasta maker with four attachments, and airbrush cake decorating kit? What about the salad scissors, banana slicer, or corn silk remover?
At this point, if you fancy yourself a chef, have spurts where cooking provides you with comfort, or just love good food, you may be nervous that minimizing your kitchen is going to ruin your workshop for culinary creation. Take heart!
Minimizing in the kitchen doesn’t take away from you—just the opposite. It is life-giving and home-enhancing.
Removing the possessions you don’t need will uncover what’s been obscured about the joy of cooking by removing the excess clutter and distractions from your kitchen work space.
But don’t take my word for it. Take it from professional chef Mark Bittman who decked out an entire kitchen for about $300, including every cooking utensil someone would need to cook like a pro. He summarized his kitchen utensil philosophy this way: “It needs only to be functional, not prestigious, lavish or expensive.”
Clear the KitchenClutter
Pick a time—maybe start first thing in the morning—when you have at least a couple of hours for the project. That’s what I did—on a Saturday morning when I knew I had time to finish the project.
Make a cup of coffee or turn on some music to put yourself at ease. Clear space on the counters to set out items.
Follow this six-step process to declutter your kitchen:
1. Relocate AnythingThat Does Not Belong in the Kitchen
Kitchens are notorious collection areas for odds and ends—mail,kids’ homework, purses, keys, and all that stuff in the infamous junk drawer. Identifya new “home” for each out-of-place item and move it there.
2. Notice PhysicalBoundaries
There are physical boundaries all over your kitchen—drawersand cabinets that provide defined, limited spaces for storage. Rather than shovingas much as you can inside these spaces, use their limitations as helpfulguidelines on how much stuff to keep.
3. Remove Duplicatesand Little-Used Items
Evaluate all the items in your kitchen by asking yourself the right question. The right question is not, Might I conceivably use it at some time? The right question is, Do I need it? If you’ve rarely or never used a tool, bowl, or storage container, then it’s probably not really necessary to keep. Also, kitchens are notorious for duplicates (spatulas, coffee mugs, spoons, pots & pans, Tupperware). Remove unneeded duplicates, keep your favorites.
Here’s a pro tip: Keep one set of lidded plastic food containers that nest together and discard the others.
4. Give Every Item aProper Home
Designate drawers for silverware and utensils; cupboards forplates, containers, pots and pans, and small appliances; and closets or shelvesfor food and larger, less-used appliances.
5. Clear the Counters
If your counters are routinely cluttered, there’s a good chance you’re storing too many daily-use items there (toaster, coffee maker, teapot, can opener, spice rack, knife block, canister of wooden spoons, cutting board, and the like). You’ve probably reasoned that leaving such things on the counters makes them easier to grab when you need them.
This is where the convenience fallacy comes into play.
The reality is that these items spend far more time asclutter than they do as needed instruments of food preparation. For example, ifyou make toast for breakfast, it will take you roughly three minutes to toastyour bread. After that, the toaster will sit unused for the next twenty-threehours and fifty-seven minutes.
Rather than allowing these appliances to take up counter space, find a home for them in an easily accessed part of the kitchen, such as inside a cabinet or on a shelf.
And don’t forget the kitchen sink. Put away any cleaningsupplies (soap, scrubber, and so on) that currently clutter up the sink area.
6. Purge the Pantry
The whole point of a kitchen is consuming food, so it makes sense that you’ve got a lot of consumables in cabinets or a pantry. But chances are that you’ve also got lots of things in there you can remove.
- Pull out everything and group items by kind.
- Relocate whatever doesn’t belong in the pantry.
- Clean the pantry.
- Put old and expired food items in the trash orcompost.
- Put foods back into the pantry in logicalgroupings. Note where you need to reduce certain foods by “eating through” yoursupplies or by donating unopened packages to a local food pantry.
- Organize items with bins or transparentcontainers so you can see at a glance what you’ve got.
- Consider how to handle grocery shoppingdifferently so you don’t have so much food sitting around in your pantry.
When you spend less time taking care of a cluttered kitchen, you have more time to make nutritious, delicious meals for your family and linger in conversation at the dinner table. When you make room for loved ones in your kitchen, you prioritize relationships by expanding everyone’s opportunities for giving and receiving love. That’s what makes the kitchen the heart of the home. It’s where body and soul are fed simultaneously.
Additional Resources:
The Declutter Your Home Checklist
How to Declutter Your Home: 10 Powerfully Creative Decluttering Tips
What is Minimalist Living? 8 Essential Aspects of Minimalism
