Often overlooked when it comes to spring cleaning, the kitchen is one of those household spaces that could really use reorganising on the regular. From rearranging the pantry to simplifying your drawers and sorting out the mess that is the space beneath the sink, we caught up with Freedom Kitchens for their step-by-step advice on how to overhaul your kitchen this spring.
Organise your pantry
As one of the hardest working parts of your kitchen, the pantry (whether a butler’s or simple single unit) is often one of the first spaces to become disorganised and overwhelming. If every time you open your pantry door something falls out (we’re looking at you Tupperware containers!), or you spend what seems like a lifetime trying to find that pasta sauce you need for tonight’s dinner, now is the perfect time to transform your pantry into one of your favourite kitchen spaces.
Step 1: Remove everything from your pantry. Throw out anything that is out of date and group the rest into ‘like’ items. Store tinned items together, then flours, sugars, pasta and rices, oils and sauces, herbs and spices and so forth. This allows you to find a given food item within your pantry quickly and easily.
Step 2: Clean the pantry shelves and internals.
Step 3: If beautiful, matching, clear containers and pretty labels are your jam, now is the time to place all items in them, keeping all like items together of course!
Step 4: Strategically place items back into the pantry. Keep go-to items at eye level (such as cereals, pasta, and other cooking staples) while placing treats and baking items up high on top shelves (out of sight, out of mind yes?!) and small appliances at the lower levels.
Step 5: Step back and admire your pantry! Oh, and try to repeat this process at least every six months so that it remains an organised masterpiece.
Hot tip: If you have children, consider placing healthy snacks on the bottom level so they can select items themselves with easy access. Also, it’s best to put small appliances up high and out of harm’s way.
Simplify your drawers
A simple and effective way to spring clean your kitchen is to tidy your drawers containing cutlery and utensils. Afterall, how many wooden spoons does one kitchen really need?
Step 1: Take everything out of your cutlery and utensil drawers. Keep all like items together.
Step 2: Put aside any duplicate utensils. Do you need all ten wooden spoons or whisks? If not, consider donating them to a charity or daycare/school. The same applies to any damaged or mismatching cutlery. The more edited your collection, the easier it will be to store.
Step 3: Wipe and clean out empty drawers.
Step 4: Put all the items back into the drawers.
The unexpected hero: Tidy under your kitchen sink
Another area of the kitchen, that can be your best friend or enemy, is the area under the kitchen sink. Ensure it’s the former by throwing out anything that you don’t use, or have duplicates of, and then group all like items together.
Consider space savvy storage solutions such as specially designed pull-out racks, or an under-sink drawer to make this organisation even easier. From cleaning products to brushes, gloves and sponges, this makes it much easier for you to find your cleaning essentials.
Thank you for ideas and beautiful photos Re: kitchen/ pantry clean up. Perfect timing/ Spring time but my clean up will be long process am in recovery after having an emergency and needing Iron infusion but I’ll get there it was done twelve months ago and have been giving away lots and lots of stuff for the last 3/4 years. time to refresh and open windows change of energy.
Hope you are feeling better soon, Vera!