7 easy hacks to help keep your kitchen Tidy

The kitchen is the heart of the house, a place for family to gather and enjoy cups of tea, meals or a chit chat. With city living becoming a little cramped, it’s important to keep your kitchen looking tidy (without spending too much time cleaning) and make good use of the small space available.

Here’s 7 easy hacks to help you keep your kitchen looking spotless.

1. Use clever storage
   For a small kitchen, you need to use every inch of available space but in a manner which doesn’t produce clutter. Store your spices in a rack hidden in a cabinet or use magnetic spice racks attached to the walls to display the bottles and for easy access. This way, you can use the cabinets to store cooking utensils or electronics.
2. Use e-storage
   Yes, you read that right! If you have an old tablet or iPad no longer in use, turn it into a place for storing your calendar items, kitchen lists, daily planner and old recipes. This will get rid of paper clutter which takes up valuable space in the kitchen and help your fridge to look tidy without bits of paper stuck underneath magnets or cookbooks piled high.
3. Line fridge shelves
   Your fridge probably ends up grimy no matter how much time you spend cleaning it. Line the shelves and racks with clear plastic wrap or absorbable fridge coasters (who knew there was a thing like that?). Simply replace them when they get dirty and that’s a whole 20 minutes saved!
4. Wipe off surfaces
   Wipe off surfaces with a surface cleaner to keep the grime and grease at bay each time you finish using the kitchen. Clean crumbs first and then wipe down with a kitchen cleaner or make your own green cleaner from baking soda and vinegar. Psst! Amway makes a fantastic kitchen cleaner that does an amazing job of breaking through tough grease and grime on cooktops and kitchen work surfaces and is environmentally friendly!
5. Organise shelves
   While it’s tempting to stick everything in packets onto cabinet shelves, the truth is, you’ll probably end up throwing expired food away because you forgot it was there. Buy some pretty tins preferably clear so you can see what’s in them, label basic staples and line them up neatly. Have a ‘uses every day’ shelf for items you use regularly and one for ‘only uses when guests come’ and it will stop you rummaging around wasting time.
6. Plastic bag overflow
   If you still use plastic bags to pack groceries at the supermarket, then prevent them from overflowing once you get home. The easiest way to stop plastic taking over your home is to have a couple of green bags in the car so you can pack your groceries in them. Otherwise, fold them up into little triangles instead of stuffing them into a drawer (they’ll take up less space) or get a plastic bag holder made of cloth or metal to hang from the inside of a cabinet in which the plastic bags are stored. Use those with small holes in the bottom as an office bin liner rather than chucking them into the bin.
7. The very last tip…
   If you currently live in small spaces like apartments, avoid bulk buying as much as possible or buying things you know you won’t ever use. Consider making your own food, growing your own vegetables and herbs and re-using everything to reduce your impact on the environment. The less stuff you buy, the less you’ll need to store!