?Show me your kitchen, I will tell you how your life is?
Well, Yes! Your kitchen is the heart of your home and its very look, makes or breaks an impression of you and your families well being – both physical and mental.
A beautiful kitchen is one that induces your appetite the moment you enter it, with its cleanliness and freshness. Well with a beautiful kitchen we do not mean an artistically made one, however a simple uncluttered, neatly arranged kitchen that is easy to work in and has enough room so that you don?t have to squeeze in every time you enter it.
Although you set your new kitchen, painstakingly and effectively, it becomes difficult to maintain it as you had the first time. With time and other jobs, the kitchen begins getting neglected. In fact the cleanliness restrains to mopping the floor, cleaning the counters and roughly dusting off.
All the plastic containers, empty boxes, cereal packets and half used sachets remain unattended to and are not cleared off, for some ages. The fact only hits you when you are planning for a party at home. Your kitchen looks like a weekly market place with everything possible inserted into all the creeks and corners – Not a place left unused.
However, when you begin cleaning, you never are able to complete due to the hugeness of the clutter that has been accumulating over time and exhaustion. You once beautiful kitchen remains a history and you further tend to neglect your kitchen more, because you are genuinely quizzed with where to begin and where to stop.
Well, decluttering is very important, especially the kitchen. Well, here?s an easy and step by step decluttering of kitchen simplified just for you.
First Things First ? Plan, Plan and Plan
Begin by planning before getting your hands on the work. Make a mental picture of your kitchen, check the most useless things that have been accrued over time. Just stand in your doorway and scan your kitchen, there ? you would almost see useless things glaring at you in 3D effect.
Now! Close your eyes and make that mental picture of where these clutter goes, straight into the waste bin or some other place for a later use.
Make a list of things that would be required for the cleaning process beginning from your lemon and vinegar to the sponges, brushes to baking soda and gloves to apron. Make the list; collect the materials in a container like bucket so that you could carry along easily.
Begin it Simple
Begin with your simple cleaning first, this is important because the beginning is just the tip of the iceberg, the moment you start you would be passed on and on from clutter to clutter that you might end up tired with not much work done. For example you might find a part of large equipment in the lower drawer, you tend to search for the other parts, you find them in another shelf, and you again want to finish it off with the left out parts and would start searching for them. Finally you would not know where exactly to place the equipment and what its actual use in the present scenario is?
Thus begin with small steps ? group everything present in your kitchen into utensils, surfaces, large appliances and small appliances.
Now go one by one within these groups, let?s begin with utensils.
- Utensils
Collect all the utensils on the kitchen counter, if any of the utensils need to be cleaned, go ahead, wash them and dry them clean. Now begin grouping the utensils based on the frequency of their usage.
Place all the utensils that are used every day, below the counter ? so that you can easily reach them while cooking. Place the glass ware and fragile cutlery little farther and at a height just above you, this will keep them safe from children.
The microwave safe utensils can be placed in a shelf near the microwave.
All those that are not used for regular cooking and serving can be kept farther away, neatly arranged in your dining area to serve both as a show piece and serving dish when required. Remove all the utensils that are not in use and those that are broken and place them in the dustbin, well, even if it was a souvenir the purpose is solved and it?s time to say good bye.
- The Counter Top
Your counter top with the gas stove makes the first choice of anyone entering the kitchen to clutter. You just carelessly tend to leave behind things you might actually want to carry back to their original places. Well, I would suggest that you make a habit of looking at your counter top once every week.
So, looking it is, and you got me right, have a look, identify things that do not belong there, remove them place them where they belong, such as the beer mug left behind after washing, the screw driver you got to tighten the screw and so on.
Some things that actually belong to the counter are so disorganized but still would not seem to catch your attention, such as that salt and pepper dispenser or the soup bowl placed on the counter. Remove these, return them to their spots and then begin cleaning the counter top with soap and brush.
With some hard work you can get a shiny counter top within minutes of beginning.
- The Kitchen Drawers
That?s one tricky place in your kitchen, yes! The kitchen drawers just wouldn?t stop taking in everything that can fit into them. Since they are closed and put a clean face outside you tend to fil them with everything that you would not want to be seen outside.
Decluttering the kitchen drawers is a herculean job, however with a little effort you could get through and have them shining clean in no time. Begin by throwing away all the unwanted papers, ruffles, old boxes of cereals, unfinished packets of cookies and those small airtight containers that are kept there for future use.
Make small compartments for useful things such as zip-lock pouches, neatly tied together and stacked, the aluminium foil neatly rolled and kept to the front end so that it could be rolled out as and when necessary, and so on.
Also make sure to vacuum your kitchen drawers without fail to remove small insects and spores of fungi that may be present there.
- Finally the Fridge
The refrigerator is the greatest cluttered equipment in every household. This is due to the fact that the main purpose one buys a refrigerator is to store things. However, with time you forget what exactly to store and what not. Thus you end up storing everything for future use, which stays put forever and you forget to remove it.
I would suggest you to take extra help while cleaning your fridge. First remove everything from the fridge, thoroughly clean and vacuum clean the shelves including the door of your refrigerator and then begin grouping the things into wanted and unwanted. Replace the things according to the time of future use in the low cool and freezer areas.
This may take some time, however it is worth the effort, because you would not only declutter your fridge but also ensure better health to your family.
Decluttering your kitchen is quite cumbersome when done infrequently, thus to simplify things you can make it a habit of cleaning your counter top every other day, clean your kitchen selves on a weekly basis and your refrigerator once in a fortnight.
