Have you ever felt like life gets on top of you when you head to the kitchen? I know that I for one often feel rather cooped up and stressed out when I’m cooking, and while it’s something I should enjoy in theory, this does mean that I often end up avoiding cooking wherever possible. Obviously this in turn then impacts on my healthiness and means I end up spending more on meals.
And then even when I do cook, I often find that it becomes hectic and chaotic as I have ten pans on the go at once and no space to put dirty plates etc. I often emerge with my cooking feeling hot, flustered and incredibly stressed. It’s no wonder I’m never in a hurry to do it again, so what’s the solution?
Well as it turns out, the problem for me with cooking is not the cooking itself but rather the kitchen environment that I’m cooking in. I feel cooped up in the kitchen because it’s generally quite a small space and it tends to feel even more claustrophobic due to the disorganisation and the amount of mess and clutter everywhere. It’s hard to be organised in the kitchen because the kitchen is not organised, and it’s hard to relax because the place is a complete mess. If we look at improving the kitchen though, it might just help us to cook more efficiently and to have more fun doing it.
Here’s how to go about doing that. Follow these tips and you should end up with a kitchen that’s not just well organised, but also clean, attractive and great to spend time in. You might just find yourself becoming quite the chef…
Tip One: Make it Easy to Clean
A perfect example of using your kitchen décor to make cooking easier is using granite or laminate flooring and countertops. This will ensure those surfaces look great and give your kitchen more of a luxury finish, but at the same time it will also mean that they are less likely to get chipped and scratched, and that it will be much easier to simply wipe away any grime or spills rather than having to scrub. As a result you’ll end up with a kitchen that looks much cleaner and that you don’t feel unhygienic just standing in…
Tip Two: Clear Lots of Space
Small kitchen appliances are great whether they’re blenders, toasty makers or coffee machines. The only slight problem however is that they take up a lot of space, and their wires exacerbate this problem even more. This in turn then means that you’ll end up with nowhere to stand your crockery and with more crumbs gathering.
The solution is to keep as much as possible in your cabinets whenever you’re not using it. Alternatively, find a space specifically for your appliances and keep them together there where they’ll be out of the way.
Tip Three: Get a Waste Disposal Unit
Waste disposal units work by sitting in your sink’s drain and then using blades to chop up any food or peel that comes in. This way you never end up with a blocked sink because you can just turn on the blades and remove the blockage. Furthermore, it also means that you can chop or peel your veg straight over the sink and then just blend away the remains rather than needing to clear space for a chopping board for every little job.
Tip Four: Have Lots of Space for Draining
Peel, stains and crumbs make a mess in your kitchen, but so too do dirty plates and pans. Part of the problem here is often that the washing up you do doesn’t fit on the draining board which then means you put off doing it or it looks just as untidy when it’s done. To avoid this problem, make sure you have as much space as possible for drying and you’ll find it’s much easier to stay on top of the washing.
Tip Five: Organise Your Cupboards Well
As well as organising what’s visible, you also need to think about how you arrange the things you aren’t using. Make sure that you keep your tins, your crockery and everything else local to the spaces where you are likely to use them and organised in such a way that you can find what you want quickly. This way you’ll find it easier to keep things tidy and you’ll spend much less time lifting and moving piles of plates around or reaching to the back of dark larders.
And all that will mean that cooking isn’t quite so off putting – and you might just end up doing it a little more often as a result.