Organizing Your Home: The Kitchen (Part Two)
In part one of organizing your kitchen, we began by de-cluttering your counter tops. Now that we have become victorious over that part of your kitchen, it is time to move on to the next step in reclaiming that all-important room in your house, your kitchen.
We will be taking steps that will require an honest overview of your kitchen from the standpoint of appraising your culinary skills and commitment to cooking. It won’t be if you will cook, but how you will (or do) cook. Keep in mind to always use small steps!
If you haven’t done so already, it is now time to either fill your dishwasher with all those dirty dishes and get it busy cleaning or, if you only have a dishpan, you will need to get scrubbing!
If you do have a dishwasher, put the detergent in and set that baby to “pots & pans.” That setting will use more water, but if your dishes have been sitting for a while, they’ll need the extra strength of that cycle to get sparkling clean. To compensate for the extra energy used during the wash cycle, consider not using the dry-cycle. Once the dishes have been washed clean, remove and dry them by hand.
If you have a dishpan that’s full of dishes, move the pan up to the sink and start washing. Dry them quickly and put the dishes away—then move your dishpan to its spot under the sink for collection of future dishes.
Next on the list is to take a good look at your kitchen appliances on the counter (or up above the cabinets). Are you finding some appliances you hardly ever use, but still collect dust and kitchen grease? Take an honest assessment of what you have and when you last used the item(s). If you haven’t used it in a while or don’t plan to use it in the near future, donate, sell, give it away, or pitch it.
For example, take a look at that cast-iron skillet you haven’t used in ages. Even though you may deem it useful, it may not be practical or used all that frequently. Be honest and be brutal. If you weed out all the unnecessary items, you’ll end up with kitchen appliances that you not only love and use, you will have also eliminated a lot of clutter.
Let’s take a look at your sink next, shall we? Is it a bit too grimy? Take a good steel wool soap pad and scrub that bad boy out! If you have a porcelain sink, take care not to use a steel wool pad, but a gentle abrasive cleaner instead. You don’t want to scratch the surface.
If you don’t have a brand name cleaner on hand to do it, you can sprinkle a good portion of baking soda on your sink and use a wet rag. Rub the baking soda paste you’ve created with the water from the rag in circles. Once you’ve finished scrubbing the whole sink, rinse the remainder down the drain.
One final step in cleaning the sink is to take some window cleaner and a dry rag. Then set about shining up the faucet and inside of the sink (if it’s chrome). Dry it all out and your sink will shine! I dare you to put a bunch of dirty dishes in it after that!
Okay, great job!
In Part 3 of Organizing Your Kitchen, we’ll look at fixing up the larger areas like cabinets, appliances and floors.
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[...] Your Home: The Kitchen (Part Three) Alright! In part one and part two of organizing your kitchen, you reclaimed your countertops, made the hard decision as to which [...]