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Letting go of kitchen clutter

After tidying my baking and muffin trays drawer, I’ve agonised over my other kitchen drawers. Every time I open the crockery drawer, I notice that we own a lot of bowls:

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All different types of bowls – pasta, soup, breakfast, noodles – we have different bowls for all of them. Which is ridiculous, I know. But I’ve got space for them and they all get used, so it’s fine we’ve got so many.

“Clear the clutter and clear space for other things to come into your life”

I’ve heard this phrase, but thought it airy-fairy, hippie nonsense. The sensible, logical engineer in me just didn’t take it in. But whenever I opened that drawer, I noticed we have SO many bowls.

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Our kitchen isn’t big. It’s not that small either, but there are some things about it that really annoy me! We don’t have a pantry – I use a couple of cupboards and drawers to store food. Overflow ends up in a storage cupboard just off the kitchen. Lately, I’ve bought more food in bulk and I’m finding myself constantly hunting around there for ingredients (and discovering food I’ve forgotten I’ve bought).

As I pulled out tubs of food for the umpteenth time, it occurred to me that if I didn’t have so many bowls, I’d have space for them in the kitchen.

It was time to lose the bowls and rearrange my drawers. The pasta bowls came out. The saucers can go too (when am I ever going to use them?).

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And the kids’ plastics drawer got cleared out too. The insulated lunch bags moved into the storage cupboard (they rarely get used). This pile of stuff was ready to be donated:

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It’s not that much but it cleared just enough room to consolidate two drawers into this:

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And I relocated the “Tupperware drawer” next to the dishwasher (together with kids’ lunchboxes) – much easier to unpack the dishwasher, bonus!

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And my bulk foods tubs moved next to my other pantry drawers.

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I could get rid of another set of bowls, but with two small kids, I’m keeping one set that won’t matter if the kids break. It’s funny how getting rid of a few things has improved the efficiency of my kitchen.

How has clearing out the clutter created more space for what you need in life? Let me know in the comments.