How to Maximize Your Counter Space
Organizing Your Kitchen to Increase Its Greatest Commodity
Small kitchens or large, no one is immune to the countertop clutter that sucks away productivity. Believe it or not, my kitchen organization has historically been worse in larger kitchens than the small ones so take me as an authority on what not to do. The main reason for that is because each step counts when cooking meals quickly, and large kitchens often mean that what you need is perpetually out-of-reach; thus, the tendency to keep certain things out at all times–like cooking oils or the toaster.
If you need to rethink countertops, here are a few of my suggestions (based on experience):
1) Rethink your use of cupboards, shelves, and book cases.
Sorry for the large weekend project here, but you cannot solve one problem if you have a space hog somewhere else taking valuable room. Here is an example: I was keeping sometimes-appliances in my kitchen corner cupboard. When I decided to pull those items out of the cupboard and move them into the basement (I can access them easily enough the 4 times a year I actually need them), I was then able to move my canister food (okay, so I use ½ gallon mason jars) like sucanat into the corner cupboard.
2) Clean Slate. Take everything off the counters, and empty the cupboards that you have decided to reorganize (great time to scrub them down, too). Sometimes you need a re-do. If you have lived in your home for any length of time at all, you have likely evolved daily kitchen habits into something different than they were when you first moved in anyway. A big change for us over the last few years is chucking the microwave–talk about wasted space!
This microwave’s main purpose seems to be as a step-ladder for the cat.
This of the counterspace this kitchen would have without it.
Perhaps you no longer drink coffee in the mornings. If so, move the coffee pot out completely, but keep it accessible for use when having dinner guests). Maybe you quit using some of the ingredients clogging the pantry.
3) Downsize. Speaking of coffee, I have regressed in my food purist ways and now consume it daily like the rest of the heathens in the country. When my coffee pot broke, we found a great little French press for only $1.50 at a thrift store and it makes much better coffee, doesn’t require electricity, and removes the need for the clunky countertop coffee pot! We already boil water in our tea kettle every morning for Wilson’s tea, so we love this new morning ritual. An alternative to the coffee pot or French press is a percolator, easily stored off-counter in a cupboard or kept on a back burner like a kettle (also super for your outdoor kitchen or camping).
What else is on your kitchen that takes more room than necessary? A toaster, a crockpot? Do you need them this large, in this space, or on a daily basis? How many plates—or sets of plates—do you have in the kitchen?
If you do not routinely have dinner parties of 32 guests, perhaps these would be good candidates for storage, to share with a family in need from church, or to be donated to the local thrift store.
4) Shelves, hooks, and nails. We use the cast iron skillets nearly every meal anyway, so why are they being put into the cupboard at all? We now have hooks to solve this problem. They’re more accessible to the stove top and add their own charm to my kitchen. I prefer canning jars to hold my staples. These go on shelves now and not directly in the pantry.
They are also easier to reach and a quick glance tells me what I will need to replace soon. The shelves freed up a lot of pantry space for all of my tasty canned goods that really need to be out of direct sunlight.
5) Double Duty. Avoid “prissy” tools that do one thing. I do not want a separate funnel for everything—I only have 2, one for widemouth jars and one for everything else that has a removable strainer. I can also consolidate by having things like this scraper…I use it to clean my counter after rolling out dough and as a spatula.
6) Additional Flat Surfaces. We have had at least 2 kitchens with awkward nothing areas: a blank wall or a corner that was not utilized as part of the kitchen. This is a great place for a roll-away work space; ours included a table folding edge and 2 stools. I loved this for sit-down food prep work even if it was not tall enough for things like kneading bread dough.
7) Utilizing Adjoining Spaces. Sometimes the cookbooks just need to be in the dining or living room. Sometimes the superfluous appliances or grandma’s priceless gravy boat need to go somewhere else altogether. We use our kitchen table for food prep all the time, but this does require that the table is clean and empty inbetween meals! That only happened when we re-thought our homeschooling space. See how it is all so interconnected? Here’s another suggestion: use JarBOX totes to store your canned goods under the couch and under beds (just don’t forget about them).
Sometimes we simply spend so much time in our kitchens that it is difficult to see them with fresh eyes. Removing everything and re-thinking its space can take a day, certainly–but it can save you countless minutes and hours later when everything you need is at your fingertips neatly and logically. When you survey the kitchen one last time before flipping the light switch at the end of the day, you are at peace with the atmosphere of the kitchen. You can sleep well knowing that a cheery kitchen and a good cup of coffee will meet you in the morning.
Here’s to clean countertops,
Chaya
Photo Credits:
Farmhouse sink: Corey Leopold via photopin cc
Appliance shelf: thebristolkid via photopin cc
Cat on Counter: striatic via photopin cc
Dish Collection: E R I via photopin cc