Is your kitchen cluttered and difficult to use? Preparing meals can be complicated if you leave things as they are because they are a hassle to clean up. By adequately organizing and tidying up, you can make it easier to use daily and make your daily cooking more comfortable.
Everyone would love to have a well-organized system kitchen. However, many people may have trouble organizing the kitchen area due to their busy daily chores.
Here are some essential points for easy-to-use kitchen storage and examples of actual use. If you keep the basics in mind and put them into practice, you can make your kitchen at home easier to use.
How Do You Organize Your Kitchen?
Kitchens are becoming cluttered with more and more things. It becomes a hassle to put things away, and keeping things in order is hard.
The reason why storage is not well organized and tidying up is actually due to “having too many things.
When you buy something new, stop putting it away in a drawer for the time being, and start by “organizing” (i.e., reducing the number of things).
After you have reduced the number of things, it will be easier to decide on storage. You will have a clean and easy-to-use kitchen surrounded by only the things you use.
How Do You Keep Your Kitchen Organised?
Even if you want to reduce the number of things in your kitchen, there are so many that it’s hard to know how to get started.
The organizing tips are as follows.
- Think about where things tend to get cluttered and where things are used most often.
- Create criteria for deciding what you need and what you don’t need.
- It is challenging to do all the places at once, so let’s start with the places that are always messy and the places that are frequently used.
- Also, even if you start without thinking, you may not be able to throw out everything because you may feel you need it. It is important to set criteria in advance, such as “items that have not been used for more than one year,” “items that you will not be inconvenienced without,” and “items that are dirty or damaged.
- You only have to apply the criteria to each item individually to do it at once. The time for hesitation is limited to 3 seconds! And proceed quickly and easily.
How Do You Proceed When Organizing a Kitchen?
Now that we have covered the basic process of organizing the kitchen, here is a more specific, location-by-location guide.
Stove area
First, when we think of “frequently used places,” the area around the stove and exhaust fan is often used for cooking. If you don’t have anything there, to begin with, there is no need to rearrange them.
Next, on the shelf under the stove, do you have pots, pans, and bottles of seasonings in it? If you have burnt pots and pans that you will use someday, you can replace them with other things, so get rid of them.
Around the sink
The sink area is often used for washing dishes and food preparation. First, check the sink for dirty old sponges and clean toothbrushes. Remember when you last used them, and throw them away if you haven’t used them in a while.
Next, if you have pots, bowls, and other items stored on the shelf under the sink, follow the same procedure as before to determine whether they are needed or not. Check to ensure that stock food and other items have not expired and that there are no items you bought as stock but will not be eating in the future.
Cupboards
There are various items in the cupboard, such as plates, cups, and cutlery. Determine if they are items that you frequently use daily, but also check to see if there are any extra items that you have prepared for guests.
Also, look back to see if you use the items daily to determine whether they are necessary or not, such as those that are badly stained with tea stains and those that are slightly chipped at the corners.
What to Do After You Organize Your Kitchen?
Once you have organized the items in your kitchen and left only what you need, the next two steps are to “decide on a fixed location” and “decide on a storage method” for each item.
Then, review the location of the utensils with an awareness of where they should be and whether they should be “easy to take out and put away,” and finally decide whether they should be “just placed and arranged,” “hung,” or “put in a case.
For example, you can place kitchen tools such as spoons and spatulas near the stove and exhaust fan because you use them almost every time you cook and choose to hang them on the range hood or wall. After all, “there is not enough space to put a stand…”.
In this way, if you reduce the number of things by organizing and then thinking about storage, it will be easier to decide on the location of each item and keep a clean kitchen.
There are some eco-friendly tricks to keep in mind
After you finish organizing your kitchen, it is essential to keep it that way.
To avoid buying more and more things where you have already reduced things, try to “reduce as you increase” as much as possible.
Thinking about throwing things away from the beginning can reduce unnecessary purchases and save money.
Organize a cleaner kitchen
When things in the kitchen are narrowed down to the essentials and organized, it is easier to clean!
Keeping the kitchen clean is more accessible so that you can prepare meals with peace of mind. A clean and organized kitchen will make family meals more enjoyable.
What Are the Basics of Kitchen Storage?
In the kitchen, there are various storage areas such as the refrigerator, cupboards, under the sink, etc., and a wide variety of items such as food, tableware, cooking utensils, and appliances.
It can be a headache to know where to put all those things. But in fact, there is a fundamental concept. It is not so difficult once you understand the basic concept.
Place utensils near where you use them
Bowls and colanders used for washing dishes should be placed under the sink, knives and cutting boards should be near the cooking table, and cooking utensils such as pans should be placed under the gas stove.
If you are unsure where to place them, think about where they will be used in the kitchen. Condiments and other cooking items should also be placed under the gas cooktop.
Put only frequently used items out on the cooktop
It may be tempting to put various items on the cooktop in the workspace because they are easy to retrieve, but try to reduce the number of things you put on the cooktop as much as possible.
By keeping only frequently used spatulas and seasonings out, you can make cooking and cleaning easier.
Separate storage based on usage frequency.
Hanging cupboards provide storage capacity but are challenging to access, so put less frequently used items in them. We recommend that you store items for guests and airtight containers.
The drawer storage in the sink is mainly for frequently used items such as cutlery. The top drawer is the most convenient to use, and the lower the drawer, the harder it is to remove items. The bottom drawer should be used for heavy and infrequently used items.
Organize with baskets and dividers
Once you have a general idea of where to place items, use baskets or dividers to organize small items.
Cutlery and cooking utensils are often small items, so sorting them by type will make them look neat and easy to use.