Organize your kitchen by clearing the clutter – Part 9

Sunday, September 28th, 2008 at 8:39 pm

I love to cook. I hate to clean. The joys and despairs of the kitchen seem worlds apart but there is a common ground in that clutter detracts from cooking and adds to cleaning. Goodbye clutter and hello joy of cooking.

Where to begin? Do you feel stuck with a prefab kitchen revolving around a sink, a small cutting area and a stove? Being clutter free involves throwing everything away into the trash can and washing the dishes when you are done. Hello – the average work cubicle gets more planning than most kitchens. Few take the time to look at the kitchen with a designing eye.

Start with your knives. Are they in a drawer (ouch) or a wooden block sitting on the counter? Is there a wall where those knives can be set with a strong magnet? If so – goodbye block! You have reclaimed a bit of space and perhaps added a decoration to your wall.

Under the counter gadgets are wonderful but try to limit them to the necessities of cooking. A can opener or a coffee maker free up space but do you really need that under the counter TV? Keep the kitchen simple helps to focus the chief on the joys of cooking rather than the distractions of daily life. Keep the microwave at bay by limiting it’s use to heating water.

Next, pots and pan. Most of the time these things are stuck in the storage cabinet or thrown in the little drawer near the bottom of the stove. Look at your wall. Is there room for a small pegboard? Now look at your pots. Odds are that you use two or three of them rather than all of them at any one time. Put in a pegboard and hang up the pans used everyday. Perhaps do what my granddad did with his tools and draw an outline of each pot on the pegboard so that they are always hung in the same place.

Ok – you moved the knives, simplified the pots and limited the items hidden under the counter. Start looking under the counter and in your top drawer. This is the drawer that is either well kept or a blizzard of disarray with spoons, forks and assorted utensils tossed into one spot. Remember the pots and pans? Keep it simple and think about which utensils are used most often and which can be moved down a drawer. Also, take a moment to add a spot of color to your kitchen by adding a new lining to your drawer.

Take a look at the emerging kitchen that are creating with a few minutes of your time. Are you beginning to feel free to experiment? Perhaps have a little fun because what you need is now in front of you and ready to roll?

Move onwards to the cutting area. This is tough. You may have a cutting board that it is recessed like a drawer or you may have a series of boards on your counter. Still, keep it simple applies to this area most of all but there are one or two other rules of thumb.

For example, the best method is to have one board for dicing and one board for meat. Most of my meals are small so portable boards can adequately provide the required surface area and can be easily stored either upright, on the wall or in a recessed nook. There are many wonderful and decorative materials that are used for cutting boards that can lend themselves to this mini makeover of your kitchen. In addition, portable cutting boards can be more easily washed or – one day – thrown away.

Finally, move to the back of the kitchen and look straight ahead at your new work area. The farther back the better because you want to get a sense of what you have created in your area. Like a properly trimmed Bonsai tree, the clutter free work area is simple but pleasing to the eye. Cooking is a breeze and cleaning simpler when clutter is gone.

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