How to Declutter Your Kitchen Counters
Decluttering is a wonderful experience. You get rid of a lot of unnecessary stuff. You clear up space in your home. You give yourself some mental rest because your brain isn’t getting burdened processing all that clutter. And if you really focus on it, you might realize you’re even breathing easier since less clutter generally means less stuff to get dusty.
- Start with cleaning
- Choose what to keep in the counters
- Sort the cupboards
- Add more storage
- Control paper clutter
- Keep kitchen organised
So, if you believe that your kitchen is in a dire need of good organising, now is the time to do that. As always, the Fantastic Services team recommends that you free a whole day for decluttering your kitchen counters. You’ve got a lot of work ahead.
Start with a good clean
Out of all the rooms in your home, the kitchen gets dirty the fastest. Everyone goes in there many times throughout the day and most of them are for a little snack. People don’t tend to clean their dishes immediately after finishing their meal, so it’s common for plates to stay in the sink or out in the open for a long time before someone washes them.
So, the first thing you should do is to give your entire kitchen a good clean. Wash all dishes, remove every item from the countertops and clean the surface thoroughly. Do the same for the items you just removed until they’re sparkling clean. Check our kitchen cleaning checklist if you need any other tips! If you want to go a step further, you could take care of your appliances as well. For tips on how to clean your freezer, check out our helpful post.
Take a look at your kitchen
The process of decluttering shouldn’t be rushed. It’s important to give yourself short breaks in which you can take a look at the entire room and figure out what makes you happy about it and what doesn’t. It’s even more important when it’s a room you use frequently.
So, scan your countertops. Open all cabinets and take everything out. Examine the things you have. There will be items you forgot about for years. Expect surprises.
Think about how much you use all of these items. Think about how much they make you happy compared to the space they take. Now is also the time to check whether you have any expired food in the cupboards and throw it away. Once you have an idea what goes where you can proceed to the next step.
Choose what to keep on the counters
The first step of decluttering is to decide on what you wish to be visible on the kitchen counters. It’s advisable that these be items and appliances you use every day. The most common examples are:
- Coffeemaker. A lot of people can’t wake up without their morning cup of coffee, so it’s best when your coffee maker is outside and easily reachable.
- Toaster. Breakfast is as equally important as coffee, and nothing makes breakfast faster than the toaster.
- Microwave. If toast isn’t a usual part of your breakfast, the microwave is the appliance you need. There are a lot of kitchen designs that have an inbuilt microwave to save space. But if yours doesn’t, you can simply have your microwave on the countertop.
- Dish rack. Some people like to keep their dishes and utensils stored away in the kitchen cabinets, others like them to be out in the open for a quick grab. If you don’t have a dishwasher and wash your dishes in the sink, the dish rack is both functional and convenient.
- Cooking tools. Ideally, your cooking tools should be hanging on a rack over your countertop. This way they won’t take up any space and will be available to you at any time. Another way is to have them all in a decorative crock. Keep in mind that this option will take up a bit more space.
- Fruit basket. If you can’t start your day without an apple, a fruit basket is a healthy and appealing option to have. Still, a fruit basket doesn’t have to be on the countertop. You can also place it on the dining table.
As you see, there are options for each of these. It might make sense to have all of these items out in the open but consider your personal position. If you drink tea instead of coffee in the morning, you might want to have a stylish tea rack on the counter instead of a coffeemaker. If you don’t cook often, you don’t need a crock of cooking tools out in the open. The countertop space is limited, so be selective.
Visit the main website for price rates on our professional home organisers!
Sort items in the cupboards
Now that you’ve selected what to keep on your kitchen counter, it’s time to find a place for everything else you’ve scattered on the table and/or the kitchen floor.
- Unused items. Very often, a kitchen is full of all kinds of cooking tools and appliances that you simply don’t use and they end up being stored in the cabinets for years. Take a look at each one of those and think if you’re really going to use them in the future.
- Very rarely used items. Those will mostly be items we use only on special occasions. These could be cake trays, serving platters and etc. Find a spot for them in the back of the kitchen counter, or in their own cabinet where they’ll be out of the way.
- Less used items. These are items you use less often than your appliances on the countertop, but still frequent enough to want them close by. Place them in the very front where they’ll be the first thing you see once you open the kitchen cabinets.
- Decorations. It’s not uncommon for decorations to find their place on the kitchen counters. But think about the space you are losing this way. The kitchen counters are a place for chopping veggies, kneading the dough, and just general cooking., In order to save as much space as possible, hang the decorations on the walls or place them in another room.
- Junk. If you find any junk in your kitchen cabinets, such as broken items or expired food, don’t think twice. Throw them away.
Add more storage
If you still have things you don’t know where to put, you can try to add a bit more countertop storage. As an example, you could buy a decorative basket for small items. Things like keys, cookbooks, food coupons or small kids toys don’t have to be to scattered around and this way you’ll always know when to look when you lose them. You can hang the basket from the kitchen cabinet or attach it to the wall via a wall mounted holder.
Control paper clutter
In the digital age we live in, the paper has become nothing more than a temporary information carrier that gets disposed of in no more than a few days. The problem is that it accumulates fast. And so much of it ends up in the kitchen. Stacks of magazines, work documents, kids’ school work, mail – all of these have the habit to get dumped on the counter or the dining table.
Of course, the first thing you can do is opt to receive all your bills and subscriptions online. In fact, many companies would ask you if you prefer that since they’re also trying to cut down on paper usage. At one point the only things you receive in your physical mailbox will be junk mail and flyers, which you can simply toss in the rubbish bin if you have no interest in them.
Paper documents usually find their way in your home, because they need to be signed and later sent to their next owner. To avoid them getting cluttered, do this immediately. Or, if the document stays with you after signing, make a place for it outside of the kitchen. Place it in a plastic folder along with other important documents and put in a drawer for safekeeping.
And of course, when it comes to kids’ school work, help them create a habit of putting away their books once they’re done doing their homework.
Visit the main website for price rates on our professional home organisers!
Keep the kitchen organised
Once you’re done with setting everything in order in your kitchen, you’re done decluttering, right? Wrong. If you want your kitchen to stay decluttered, you have to make a habit of keeping everything the way it is, so you don’t have to spend a whole day doing it all over again. The best way for this is to develop a few ground rules for yourself and your household.
A good example is to make sure that everyone washes their dishes once they’re done eating, by cleaning them in the sink or putting them in the dishwasher. Wipe down the counter after you’ve used it. Make sure no paper clutter stays in the kitchen for too long. And of course, keep the organisation of the kitchen counters the way you like it the most.
Takeaways
- Decluttering is an important part of the kitchen counter organisation;
- Additional storage can help a lot with organising;
- Paper clutter if your worst enemy when it comes to decluttering.
Decluttering your kitchen counters will bring a lot of ease and tranquillity into your kitchen and home. If you need your kitchen counters decluttered and organised, but don’t have the time to do it, you can always rely on the professional help of our friendly home organisers.
***
Do you have more ideas about decluttering your kitchen counters? Share them with us in the comment section.
Image source: Stelmakh Oxana/shutterstock.com
