How To Declutter Your Kitchen

For most, the kitchen is the heart of the home. It’s where core memories are made, emotions fly, and heart-to-hearts happen. But when it comes to organising your kitchen, clutter can be your biggest downfall. It’s all too easy to collect crockery, or snacks boxes, and everyone’s heard of the ‘everything drawer.’

As an experienced home organiser and declutter diva, I want to share with you my top tips on how to declutter your kitchen, including some links to products I find helpful when organising my kitchen. These links are not commission paid, and so they are my honest recommendations. 

Whether you’re a busy mum, stressed-out singleton, time-poor professional, late-night muncher or grab-n-go eater, there’s a different way to organise your kitchen space based on your exact lifestyle and I’m here to help you along the way.

How To Declutter Your Kitchen Worktops

When it comes to cooking, efficiency is key. I’m always the first to say – optimise! Organise your space based on how you use it, always. If you’re a lover of seasonings, make sure they’re right next to your hob. If you bake more often, have your pans and trays higher up for easy access. Whether you’re a minimalist or love some maximalist decor, there are ways to organise your kitchen worktops without getting overloaded. 

Start by designating zones. For me, that is my Breakfast Station, Dishes Section, Quick-draw Items, Recipe Nook and Utensil Pots. Although some love to have everything hidden, I’m a firm believer in having things to hand for when you need them in a hurry, or working around children. 

That’s why I tend to create Breakfast Stations, with: coffee, teas, sugar and sweeteners, syrups, mugs and teaspoons, and any other breakfast related appliances such as toasters, coffee machines, grinders, juicers and so on – right next to the kettle, ready to go. These can sit on personal shelves or lazy susans for ease of access, but primarily they are there to minimise the amount of cupboards opening and closing while making your breakfast, juice or brew in the morning.

Similarly, I keep my Dishes Section tip top, that’s drying rack, sponges, gloves, liquids, scourers and a tea-towel close to hand, to make (possibly the most hated chore) as quick and simple as possible. 

When it comes to cooking, I believe speed is key. Again, it’s all about minimising the amount of cupboards you have to enter just to fix up a quick stir-fry or salad. Your Quick-draw items are things like oil, salt and pepper, vinegars, herbs and spices, you know – the items you want in your arsenal at all times, right? Similar to the Brew Station, I keep these items front and center, near my hobs. So that when the time comes, cooking is made easier.

Although some may not like to see these items on show, there are some nifty ways to keep things hidden at the same time accessible, such as this spice rack which sits nicely under your nearest cupboard, or these simple bamboo tea organisers.

My last section will always be a Utensils Pot. Just like your quick-draw food items, you need some quick-draw utensils too. Keeping cutlery and utensils closer to hand can make mealtime much easier for busy parents or those on-the-go. 

Some home cooks love to make food the old fashioned way with real cook books. Keeping your stands, books and bookmarks all together neatly, means easy access when looking for your favourite meal. Alternatively, if you find yourself drawn to snipping out your favourite recipes from magazines and cookbooks, keep them all in an easy-to-grab, easy-to-clean folder. That way you can recycle the magazines and leave your recipe books on the bookshelf to be admired. Check out my blog on how to organise a bookshelf.

Once you’ve set up your priority zones, you’ll start to notice what feels out of place. Items you don’t use as much, such as mixers or toasty makers can happily sit inside deep drawers or eye-level cupboards for ease of access but less clutter on your worktops. 

Underhung shelves or racks can also help with this, when tea-towels and favourite pans are easier to access, and less-used items are hidden away waiting for their turn. Stackable shelves and kitchen risers are also great ways to keep appliances compact and not strewn across your work surfaces. These are all items I employ when organising my clients’ kitchens. If you want to learn more about the services I offer, get in touch today. 

How To Declutter Kitchen Cupboards

So you’ve sorted through your worktops, but when you open a kitchen cupboard it’s like all hell’s broken loose! Now this is exactly what we don’t want to happen. So your first step is – and it will be brutal – to cull as much as possible. 

The blender you never use? Charity shop. The crockery you haven’t opened? Re-gift it! There’s no point holding on to kitchen items that don’t suit your every day needs, and that includes those items you think “Oh, I’ll use that one day”, because if that “one day” hasn’t cropped up within the last 12 months, get rid! 

Check through all of your kitchen items to see if you have duplicates, choose your most used one and then rehome or recycle the other. If you have any chipped, cracked or broken, try not to send it to landfill, but look for local craftspeople such as a mosaicist or sculpture artists who may be able to repurpose the ceramic. 

Now, I must add, that during the culling process it is important to be mindful of how you get rid of these items. If your electricals still work, please think about gifting to charity. If they’re not even open, offer to local soup kitchens. But most importantly, don’t throw away – repurpose, reuse, recycle, always. It’s part of my ethos within my home organisation services, and should always be part of any organisation strategy.

Now you’ve culled your appliances, crockery, pots and pans, it’s time to start organising in a way that suits your personal lifestyle. If you’re an avid baker, that means the scales, mixer and baking trays need to be in the most accessible cupboard to your most-used worktop space. Maybe you’re a juicer, and your bottles, measuring spoons or tupperware need to be front and center. Think about what you use the most. Too many times have I entered a client’s house who complains that they love to bake but don’t get around to it. That’s because all your items are hidden away, at the back of cupboards behind all the pots and pans. 

Another thing I notice in client’s homes, is items that are typically used together, such as scales, mixer and bowls for baking, are often spread about the room. This makes starting your baking much harder, and putting away a task. Store these lifestyle-essential items together in easily accessible spaces.

Next up would be your food itself. Your first job is always to check expiry dates, anything out-of-date needs to be thrown away, but always make sure to empty the contents of cans and jars into food waste bins first. Trapped water and biodegradable items cannot biodegrade inside tin cans and glass jars! It seems obvious, but this is something that is often overlooked when organising kitchen cupboards.

Once you’ve cleared all of your out-of-date food, you’ll want to organise what’s left in the FIFO fashion. That is – First In, First Out. Again, this sounds so simple when said outloud, but how many times have you got home with your shopping and just shoved everything in your cupboards in a rush? We’ve all done it, right? But it’s important to switch around your perishables so that the items going out-of-date first are at the front, and the ones with a longer life go behind. This is a typical system used in commercial kitchens across the country, and should always be used in domestic kitchens as a way to minimise waste and can also be a healthy way to mix up your meals – because knowing what is going out sooner can remove decision making when it comes to making your next meal!

Last of all, I will always recommend a lazy suzan for inside cupboards. Different from the FIFO method, this is the easiest way to see more of your cupboards, without moving jars and cans around just to remember what you have available. Keep items such as condiments, herbs and spices or even jars of cereals and pulses on a turntable so you can see all that’s available.

Everything Drawer

Most people call it the everything drawer, the junk drawer or crap drawer, but I like to call it the Really Useful Drawer. Because really, everything that’s in there should serve a purpose. If it doesn’t? Chuck it out. But don’t forget to recycle or repurpose where possible. Old menus, business cards you’ve never used, faded receipts, used batteries or lighters, pens that don’t work. These are all items you need to cull in order to keep your Really Useful Drawer really useful. 

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