Decluttering Items with Sentimental Value

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Your kitchen is the get-together space in your house, where food is cooked and family and friends gather to enjoy it.

Due to all the activities that take place there, the kitchen can easily get cluttered with gadgets and appliances, even with things that don’t belong there at all.

As the owner of the house, you can easily deal with kitchen clutter permanently, if you know how to begin.

Here’s is some important information and steps to follow to help you get rid of kitchen clutter permanently and enjoy a clean and tidy cooking area.

How to get rid of kitchen clutter permanently

  1. Creating spaces for similar items

Having a cluttered kitchen is very annoying. When looking for utensils and cookware, it can be frustrating trying to locate where you stored the relevant tools for cooking your food.

By creating spaces in your kitchen for similar things, you know simply where to go to get just what you require.

For instance, have an area or cabinet dedicated to pots and pans. You can also have a space dedicated to baking items and mixing bowls.

By having clearly-organized spaces, you can enjoy the kitchen more, with less time spent searching for specific items.

  1. Get rid of items that don’t belong

To start, you should get rid of items which don’t belong in your kitchen. If you have a junk cabinet or drawer, begin there first.

While clearing the clutter, consider if the item you’re analyzing has a purpose in the kitchen. If not, locate the right spot for it in other rooms within your house or throw it away.

You should sift through every drawer and cabinet to get to know what you have in your kitchen then proceed to get rid of items that do not belong.

Put boxes on the floor and label one for trash, one to keep in the kitchen, one to relocate to a different room and one for donation.

By sorting the items efficiently, it will be easy to put the kitchen back together and prevent clutter build up.

  1. Let it go

One of the major reasons a kitchen gets easily cluttered is because of lots of items that you don’t use and which you are unwilling to release, for whatever reason.

When decluttering the kitchen, check out your items. If you discover that you haven’t used some items for a long time, let them go through discarding them or donating them if they are usable.

This can help you free up kitchen space for things you require and use regularly.

How to declutter kitchen items that have sentimental value

One of the reasons why we hold on to items we do not need or rarely use could be because we are attached to them emotionally.

The attachment could be because they were gifts, or they remind us of someone, somewhere or something special or due to some other value that we assign to the items.

Regardless of the sentimental value that we attach to these items, we have to admit that some things have outlived their usefulness and it is time to let them go. Try the tips below to release such items:

1. Start with the simplest

Start by dealing with the simplest. You can start with the things that you have the least attachment to and can release with ease.

Deal with functional items having little to no emotions attached to them. Sort per item e.g. all the mugs, the plastic measuring cups, plates etc.

To declutter the simple things first will provide you with the joy that little victories or small wins provide.

This will build your confidence as you do further sorting and make the more difficult decision of releasing items you are more attached to easier.

By doing this, you will have all the confidence you require when you’re ready to begin sorting the sentimental items.

2. Designate a sentimental space

You should have an area designated as the “sentimental space.” This can be a box, a closet, a basement, a corner of a room or any other space that you will designate.

This space should be specifically used for storing all sentimental things as you work through all your home’s main living spaces.

The sentimental space can be used to store things which you are highly attached to such as papers or drawings done by your children or beautiful utensils or other pieces that you do not want to get rid of.

This “sentimental space” allows you to retain items which you are sentimentally attached to while keeping your kitchen neat. This space allows you to kill two birds with one stone.

3. Let the residue items go

All items that do not belong to the first category of the simple items to release and which do not qualify to go into the sentimental space are not for keeps.

Give yourself a pat on the back once you find the courage to release these items.

How to maintain a clutter free kitchen after decluttering

Decluttering is an essential part of simplifying your kitchen, your life and your house.

If you have a lot of items or if you enjoy shopping, keeping your kitchen or your house clutter free and organized consistently will be a tall order.

Decluttering does not come to an end after you do it once, it is a continuous process.

This is because in the normal course of life, the factors that lead to clutter accumulation such as wear and tear, breakage of items, shopping to keep up with trends, will continue to take place.

Hence, even after you have disposed of the clutter, you will require routines, systems and habits for maintaining your clutter-free area. These include:

  • Food plan every week so you are unlikely to over purchase groceries.
  • Get a designated mailbox so that mail and other documents do not stack on the chat bar, kitchen island, counters or the kitchen table.
  • You should empty your sink and run the utensils each night as part of your every night routine.
  • You should maintain order in your drawers, kitchen cabinets and pantry by spending 5 to 10 minutes decluttering or tidying when necessary, or at least once a week.
  • Use the “one-in-one-out” rule for things in the kitchen from coffee mugs to small appliances.
  • Each morning, empty the dishwasher as part of the morning routine. This ensures you aren’t coming home to a sink filled with utensils.
  • You should clean the refrigerator at least once weekly. If possible, do this clean up the day/night before the trash gets collected. This will keep the baskets free from leftover takeout or expired food and create room for fresh groceries.
  • Get your loved ones involved in the regular decluttering so they can assist in putting things away in a neat way.

When you get in the habit of dealing with kitchen clutter and messes on a continuous basis and not as a one-off exercise, it means you will eventually spend less time cleaning up and still have a clutter-free, organized kitchen.