How to Keep Your Utensils Under Control | KonMari Your Kitchen, Part 3
/Welcome to part 3 of the kitchen tidying series! The first 2 posts in the series, tidying your fridge and pantry, have had really good responses, which is fun. If you missed reading them it’s worth going back, imho.
This week we’ll be talking about tidying your kitchen utensils. I’m including baking, cooking and serving, and eating tools in this sub-category.
Imagine your ideal kitchen
Remember, one of the first steps in the KonMari Method™ is to imagine your ideal life/day. Think about how you use your kitchen and what would be your ideal. Would you like to cook more? Entertain? Make it easier to find tools and put them away after using them? Take some time to think about what your ideal kitchen would look like and how it could serve you best.
Discard
Once you’ve thought about your ideal kitchen, the next step is to discard. Take all your utensils out and group them so like items are together. You might find that you have more than you need or want of certain things, so this is a good time to decide what sparks joy and release things you’re no longer using.
Store
Once you’ve honed down your collection, you can start thinking about the most efficient place to store things. Don’t be afraid to try something new. Just because you’ve stored your spatulas in one drawer since you moved in doesn’t mean you can’t move them to another place to make things easier on yourself. Once you figure out what makes sense, put things away.
NOW is the time to see if you need some containers to keep things organized. We all know I don’t like to buy stuff to store stuff, but this is an instance where you might want to invest in some inexpensive containers if you don’t have anything at home that you can use. It’s tricky to keep drawers tidy if you don’t have some type of dividers to corral things..
In my baking drawer I use a couple acrylic containers to store measuring spoons and spatulas.
The one exception I make for storing things out in the open is a vase that I got at the local university’s art show. Unfortunately, it leaks, so I couldn’t use it for flowers, but I really like it, so I store my wooden spoons in it. I think it looks great on our open shelving.
Most of our knives and our kitchen shears are on a magnetic strip we got from IKEA.
I keep my cutting tools (other than the knives hanging up) in another drawer, again separated into compartments with acrylic bins. Initially I was very precise about what went where and exactly how it was placed, but if my family can get things back in the correct drawer, I’m happy. Easing up a bit has made all of us happier. The blue thing isn’t a cutting tool, but I keep it next to the can opener, because I use it when I open cans to drain them. That makes sense to me.
The tools I use on the stove are kept next to it in a drawer. Nothing earth-shattering about it. I don’t like having these out on my counter but if you like keeping yours out in a big container that’s fine. I’ve come to the point where almost anything on the counter looks messy to me, and if I have to move something to cook, it makes me not want to cook. Also, the view from our front door is directly into our kitchen, so having a peaceful, cleaned off counter works for us.
Our silverware is in a drawer, again nothing to brag about here - silverware organizers come in all shapes and sizes. Just figure out what works for you.
I recently helped unpack and set up the kitchen in our new church building. The packing team had already weeded out the things that needed to be discarded so we didn’t have to make any decisions about what to keep. As always, we keep similar things together. Lots of different people use these tools, so we wanted to make it very simple to put things back where they belong. We ended up getting these wooden dividers at Walmart to separate the drawers into sections. They are spring loaded and so far have worked great. If you have large drawers and just need to make a couple sections, these are a good option.
That’s it - short and sweet. We hope this helps. If you want in-person help to tidy your kitchen - give us a shout! 501-291-3531. See you next time for part 4.
Happy Tidying!
We’d LOVE to see you at our upcoming workshop. We’re teaming up with UA-PTC for a KonMari evening that will help inspire you to get going on your tidying journey. Just in time for the holidays!
Sue Fehlberg is Arkansas’ first Certified KonMari Consultant.
