10 Steps to Declutter Your Kitchen

Your kitchen is arguably one of the most important rooms in your home. It is where you spend your time making meals for your family, friends, and for yourself. Cooking and sharing these meals with others should be an enjoyable experience, but a cluttered kitchen can easily turn it into something stressful. While the kitchen should be the place where you cook and eat meals, it often turns into a dropping point for items in your home. You, your spouse, or your children, will walk into the kitchen to grab a bite to eat, and leave things behind like mail, keys, toys, and other miscellaneous items. Before you know it, your counters are completely covered with clutter. Learning how to declutter your kitchen is essential. 

The first step to decluttering your kitchen is knowing where to start. It’s important to have a game plan in place before beginning the decluttering process. Tackling such a large project can be overwhelming but knowing where to start will help keep you focused and on track. Having a plan can also help ensure that your kitchen will stay decluttered for longer. Plan to follow these ten tips to declutter your kitchen.

1. Designate a bin for counter clutter

Clutter can easily build up on your counters. Place a small bin in on a countertop to help declutter your kitchen. Explain to everyone in your household that clutter can only go into this bin, not onto the countertops. At the end of the day, go through the bin and return things to their rightful location.

2. Clear your countertops every night before bed

Even with your clutter bin, you are bound to end up with some clutter on your kitchen countertops. Combat this by clearing off your countertops before bed. This will allow you to start fresh every single day. Plus, getting into the habit of doing this before bed will turn into an easy routine.

3. Invest in a mail organizer for the kitchen counter

To keep mail off of your counters, invest in a kitchen countertop mail organizer. This could either be an organizer that you attach to your wall or a small file organizer on your table or countertop. The idea is that mail can only go to the organizer, and will never cause clutter in your kitchen again. Decluttering your kitchen countertops is one of the easiest ways to make your kitchen appear less cluttered. 

4. Organize your junk drawer

A junk drawer is great for storing things you need, but have no place for. That being said, when the time comes that you need those things, they can be impossible to find. Stop by the dollar store and pick up a drawer organizer. Separate items into categories to make them easier to find when you need them.

5. Throw away anything broken or chipped

Go through everything in your kitchen and get rid of everything that is broken or chipped. Chipped glasses and plates can be dangerous, as the chips reveal sharp edges that could cut you or a loved one. Broken items have no place in your home and are only taking up space. Take the opportunity now to throw them away.

6. Sort through all duplicates

Go through all of the items in your kitchen. Keep an eye out for anything that shows up more than once. For most items, you do not need to have more than one. Pick your favorite of the two, and donate or toss the other one.

7. Get rid of unused or extra kitchen appliances

It’s incredibly easy to get sucked into buying all of the little gadgets and appliances that are supposed to make our lives easier in the kitchen. These gadgets can quickly build up and take up all of the space in the kitchen. Take a moment to go through all of these gadgets. Do they really make your life easier? Do you use it often? Would you buy it again if given the chance? If your answer to any of these questions is no, it’s time to get rid of it.

8. Aim for practical, not pretty

We all love to see the pretty kitchens on Pinterest, but they’re just simply unrealistic. While it may look nice to have everything in labeled giant glass jars, it takes up triple the space of the original containers. You don’t have to sacrifice aesthetic for a decluttered kitchen, but you should be mindful about the dimensions of your kitchen décor. Think through your purchases and understand that while it can be pretty, it has to also be practical.

9. Limit your number of pots and pans

While it may be convenient to own five different pots of all shapes and sizes, it’s really not necessary. Limit yourself to 2-3 pots and 2 pans. Your pots and pans should vary in size so that you aren’t missing anything essential, but unless your kitchen runs like a restaurant, 4 or 5 pots and pans should be more than enough to keep you going.

10. Store smart

Be smart about where you store the items and appliances in your kitchen. If you use an appliance daily, like a coffee maker or a toaster, it should sit out on your countertop. Whereas, if you use something once a week, it can live on a shelf or inside a cupboard. To cut down on clutter in your kitchen even more, if you have an appliance like a turkey roaster that you only use once a year, put it in your storage unit or basement. This will save tons of space and allow you to move more things off of your counters and into your kitchen storage.

If you would like to declutter even further, go through your kitchen and get rid of these 20 items that you do not need. This will save you tons of space in your kitchen and will greatly reduce your clutter. Ask yourself these 3 questions as you go along?

Do I use this item?

Is this item a duplicate?

If I got rid of this item, would I miss it?

Start decluttering your kitchen by going through the following items and getting rid of what you don’t need:

1. Cookbooks

2. Cooking utensils

3. Dish towels

4. Oven mitts

5. Magnets

6. Take-out menus

7. Single-use condiments

8. Disposable Cutlery

9. Coffee mugs

10. Expired food

11. Promotional mail

12. Spices

13. Tupperware

14. Small Appliances

15. Dishware

16. Glasses

17. Condiments and sauces

18. Cutting boards

19. Cleaning supplies

20. “Junk” from your junk drawer

That’s it! Once you have followed the ten easy steps to declutter your kitchen and gotten rid of the 20 items, you will have a clutter-free kitchen. If this seems like too large of a project to take on, give yourself time by going step by step. No matter if you do some steps or all, your kitchen will be less cluttered than when you started. For more tips on decluttering, enjoying your home, and much more, sign up for our monthly newsletter.