Easy Ways To Create Stations and Declutter Kitchen Spaces
Hey there! If you are new to reading Home with Booz, thank you for being here. If you have visited this blog before, thank you for coming back to learn with me ways we can make our lives less complicated and more fulfilled.
Each season I like to do a quick edit of our primary living spaces, ensuring I stay on top of any clutter and promote our efficiency in using each space. This time of year, the kitchen areas are top on my list to declutter and refresh as I find in the spring and fall, the meals start to take on a different vibe and we move from heavier dinners to light and refreshing meals, often eating outside. This shifts how we use these areas of our home and what we need to be ready for the warmer months. Whether you are already organized and need a simple edit in this space or you need a major overhaul, I hope you find some simple ideas to help you move forward with renewal and excitement.
Spring Decluttering
This Month’s Organized Spaces
*Disclaimer: Home with Booz may earn compensation from several affiliate advertising programs. This means if you click and/or make a purchase through certain links on this site or any related social media platforms (including Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook) I may make a commission at not cost to you. All opinions are my own and products I recommend are ones I use or plan to purchase for our home.
For the last month I have been allowing myself time to tackle different stations around the kitchen to purge and donate any unused items. If needed, I will sometimes take a few minutes to reorganize to maximize each area as part of the process. As I went through each cabinet and drawer, I found myself ready for a few changes and spent more time in a few key areas. Here’s a run down of where I focused my efforts this season to make a few enhancements based on the changing needs of our family.
Drink Station
Drink Station
This space works hard for us every day. We love our coffee in the morning and we all have our favorite water bottles we use throughout the day. It’s amazing how many cups one can collect over time so this is an area I like to edit often to ensure we only keep the ones we use frequently or have a specific purpose for like activities such as bike rides or sporting events. I like using these storage bins for easy access and how the medium storage bins help to keep a variety of different sizes and shapes all stored nicely together. As you can see the bins are full, which means we are a one in and one out for any new cups that find their way into our home.
I’ve stored our coffee pods in this drawer since we moved into this home and it’s an easy system to use and restock as needed. These deep drawer bins work great and I like how they can hold several boxes of pods. This year I spent some time looking at all the little items I had in the lower cabinet (protein powders, magic bullet etc.) and added these baskets to group like things together and to make it easier to access when needed. Editing this station took me less than 10 minutes and improving the function in a few of the cabinets was a nice refresh this season.
Prep Station
Prep Station
I like to keep our island countertop clean and generally don’t keep anything routinely out on the island aside from a fruit bowl. This is the perfect spot to prep food when preparing a meal and I usually take up quite a bit of counter space as I like to get all the food prepped and ready to throw together before I start cooking. This year during my spring cleaning I decided to make a few enhancements to this set-up and found some never used items I could donate to help free up real estate. I recently bought this storage bag organizer which helps to keep some of our food storage items organized in this drawer. This $25 purchase has been so helpful to ensure things don’t move around in the drawer and helps me know when it’s time to restock.
Since I consistently do all my food prep on the island, I decided this spring it was time to rethink how we store our spices. Previously these were on the back wall and in an upper cabinet. This meant a lot of back and forth to pull out what I needed and the storage in the upper cabinet even with the tiered organizer made it hard for me to find what I needed. I am so pleased with the change in having our spices in a drawer and love how easy this drawer organizer for seasonings with interlocking expandable trays was to make the switch in location. These mini glass jugs are great for items like whole allspice and also fit nicely in the spice drawer. This upgrade took me 10 minutes and has made such a big difference when I am prepping food to have easy access on the island for what I need. Another win for form and function!
Pantry Station
Pantry Station
In our pantry I created different sections within this space to help organize the various food items we store in here. This spring, as I went through the storage bins to check for expired items, I decided I wanted to update our food storage containers for some of the non-perishables we like to keep on hand. After reading reviews, I purchased these glass canisters from Crate&Barrel in a variety of sizes. I am so pleased with how well they look and store our favorite items. I bought a few different sizes to get started to explore how much each size held and then went back to purchase the rest in order to complete the look in this section.
I buy my cookbooks from Target and have my favorite ones out on the counter in the panty for easy access. Recently I took out a few of these to find some new recipes for the spring because sometimes I get in a rut of making the same 5 recipes on repeat. Using the change of seasons to spark a change in recipes is a great way to kick off spring. I also have an oldie but a goodie black binder where I have the random recipes I’ve printed or received over the years which are some of my favorite meals to cook. One of my simple projects this spring was to go through the binder and reorganize these recipes into types of food (appetizers, entrees etc) and pitch any of the ones I never use. This easy project took around 10 minutes as well and it has made such a difference to easily find the recipe I am looking for when I am ready to start to prepare a meal.
Final Thoughts
Creating different stations within a space can help tremendously in both maximizing efficiency and ensuring you have what you need, when you need it. This also makes decluttering your home a quick process each season, giving you both a functional and organized home. I hope you found some inspiration and new ideas for how to create stations and declutter your kitchen!
This post pairs well with a Chateau Peyrassol Rose wine which is from the South of France in Provence, and one of our most memorable wine vacation! If you found this post useful, please consider sharing it on Pinterest with others! Cheers!
I like some of the things you did to stay organized. I’m currently working on doing this in the most common areas of the house including the kitchen, so thanks for sharing!
This was such a great read with so many useful, everyday ideas. I liked how you focused on function without sacrificing simplicity, especially with the drink and prep stations. The seasonal reset approach makes organizing feel less like a chore and more like a natural part of home life.
I love the idea of stations! Thank you so much for sharing!
I want to make a drink station in my home too!
This is great, I think we each have our own stations naturally occur in our kitchens and when we purposefully focus in on those we can make our kitchens so much more efficient.
I love having an organized kitchen and setting up stations and keeping the counter clutter free is extremely helpful. We spend so much time in out kitchens it’s easiest when it’s organized and easy to find what we need.