How To Set Up Your Kitchen Counter
5 Expert-Canonical Tips for Organizing Your Kitchen Countertop
Learn how to continue the surfaces in this highly-trafficked space clean.
When yous rely on your kitchen counter for everything from preparing dinner and sorting the mail to baking cookies and finishing upwardly a school science project, keeping the space organized is essential to maintaining your dwelling house'southward efficiency. "Waking up in the forenoon with a clean countertop gives you a fresh offset to your twenty-four hours and allows you to get what y'all need in seconds," says Neitra Rose of Organizing Lifestyles. "When the countertop is full it tin make you feel anxious, rushed, or overwhelmed." Luckily, keeping your countertops neat and tidy is easier than you think, peculiarly once you lot heed the advice of our experts.
Hide as much as you tin.
The fundamental to organized counters is to keep them as empty every bit possible; opt instead to store most of your kitchen tools and other must-haves in drawers, cabinets, or on shelves. "Items stored on the countertop should only exist things that you use on a daily basis," says Rose. "If you potable coffee every morning, then the coffee maker should remain on the countertop—no one wants to pull out the coffee maker every 24-hour interval. [But] appliances not used regularly tin be placed in a bottom chiffonier or in the pantry on a shelf for storage."
Ashley Murphy and Marissa Hagmeyer, founders of NEAT Method, also suggest playing by these aforementioned rules. They sign off on storing often used items—like newspaper towels or olive oil—on the counter, but encourage clients to tuck the rest away. "Rather than view kitchen counters equally storage space, see them as the workspace they are," says Murphy. "Like any workspace, you don't want to waste precious time immigration an expanse to begin work. You lot desire to pull everything out and just start cooking." And minimalist counters offer a subtle hint to the balance of the people in your home: "Past keeping counters clear, yous are sending a subtle message to other household members—kitchen counters are not a dumping footing," says Hagmeyer.
Coordinate your counters with your cabinets and drawers.
When deciding where to place items that volition live on your counter, use the drawers and cabinets above and below to create simplified areas for different activities. "Kitchens should not be fix equally if you are getting fix for a circuit workout," says Rose. "Y'all shouldn't have to walk to iii different spots in your kitchen in order to make coffee—you should be able to get everything you need in i zone." Keep your mugs higher up the coffeemaker and your sugar packets in a drawer beneath; put your stand mixer adjacent to your baking supplies cabinet; put plates and silverware by the stove. The same is true for prep tools, says Murphy: "If y'all're using a knife cake, shop it to a higher place where your cutting boards are stored. If you lot store a few everyday cooking utensils in a crock, place those near the drawer with the rest of your cooking utensils. This way there's no extra steps needed to grab additional items."
Maximize your square footage.
Brand the almost of often-overlooked infinite past creating storage on your backsplash or walls. "I always try to wait at the wasted space to create storage," says Rose, who recommends attaching magnetic strips to the backsplash to shop knives or cooking utensils and hanging baskets for fruit. Some other tip for freeing up counter infinite: "Consider moving a category of items out of the kitchen to create more storage in cabinets and drawers for everyday needs," says Hagmeyer. "Specialty cleaners, occasional use fine mainland china, and other entertaining dishware are great items to motion out of essential kitchen cabinets. For instance, sporadically used specialty cleaners tin be moved to a laundry area, mudroom, or garage."
Use pretty containers.
Dress up items you practise programme to leave out—similar olive oil, table salt and pepper, or other spices—with a chic wooden turntable or an elegant tray. "A tray helps twofold: Information technology creates a boundary, so the category doesn't grow out of control, and information technology makes information technology really easy to move the entire category if yous demand actress counter space," says White potato. "For items that must alive on the counter, store local housewares boutiques for beautiful vessels, similar oil carafes and table salt cellars. This volition help maintain a more intentional space to discourage other household members from using countertops as a dump zone."
Organize futurity clutter.
Whether yous want ane or not, every kitchen has a counter that serves as a drop zone for papers, toys, keys, and merely almost everything else. Tackle the papers commencement, says Rose. "Because mail is one of the biggest things that ataxia upwards our countertops, I talk to my clients about getting in the habit of, when you bring the mail in, going direct to the recycle bin or trash can and eliminating the junk postal service. If you did this for a few weeks you volition detect a lot less newspaper on those counter tops," she says. And then move the other items to a hidden shelf or a drawer—if space allows, says Hagmeyer. "If you cannot designate a cabinet shelf or drawer for your 'all purpose' surface area—otherwise known as the junk drawer—purchase a counter-appropriate basket or bin with loftier sides to hide the contents," she says. "You can add boosted smaller containers within to create designated space for pens, tape, and paperwork. By using a basket, you lot can quickly transport your drop zone out of view or to another space."
Source: https://www.marthastewart.com/7983231/kitchen-counter-organization
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