Here's A Good Place To Start Decluttering A Kitchen If You're Stuck

No matter how small or spacious your kitchen may be, chances are you deal with kitchen clutter more often than you'd like. From bulky appliances and cookware to cups, glasses, and miscellaneous items you can never seem to find when you need them, the kitchen is one of the hardest rooms to organize and declutter. Whether you need to clear out your pantry or reorganize dishes, you might be wondering where to start decluttering your kitchen.

Thankfully, with the right organizational methods and tools, it's not an impossible task. In an exclusive interview with House Digest, Maria Baer, organizational expert and founder of The Baer Minimalist, shared helpful advice to help you declutter your kitchen, starting with a very important recommendation: where to start your decluttering project if you're feeling stuck. While some may enjoy starting with their favorite items like coffee mugs, Baer suggests starting with items without sentimental ties.

 "The kitchen is most often the 'heart of the home,'" Maria Baer said. "This can be difficult if the kitchen island is covered with junk mail, or mugs come spilling out when you open a cabinet." To combat this, Baer's suggestion for starting is "a category of items that doesn't have a lot of sentimental ties — consider matching up all your Tupperware and recycling anything that doesn't have a lid or a base." Below, we break down Baer's expert decluttering advice, including guidance on how to start, plus her other tips to help you achieve a perfectly organized kitchen.

Although you might get frustrated every time you clear out the dishwasher and realize your kitchen cabinet is bursting at the seams with coffee mugs, organization and decluttering expert Maria Baer says this is not the ideal place to start. Speaking exclusively with House Digest, Baer said that coffee mugs can be the hardest place to begin because mugs are commonly obtained as souvenirs, gifts, or mementos. "I actually find that mugs can be one of the trickiest things to edit because oftentimes they have sentimental value," says Baer. "We all likely have more mugs than we can possibly drink out of, but they can evoke emotion when it comes to sending them off for donation."

Instead, the Baer Minimalist founder recommends starting solely with non-sentimental items. Think Tupperware, mail, or food, anything that can be done with some degree of objectivity. "Discard expired food from your pantry cabinet or closet," Baer said. She added that decluttering your junk drawer is also a great place to start, as many items can usually go directly into the trash or recycling, such as plastic utensils, unused sauce packets, and business cards. Once you're done, she suggests, "Weed out any duplicates that you have from your cooking utensils, considering both the items on your countertop and those stored in drawers."

Once you've tackled all the non-sentimental categories, the real work begins. But thanks to this expert advice from Maria Baer, you'll be set to declutter and organize your kitchen like a pro. In an exclusive interview with House Digest, Baer shared that once you're in the groove of decluttering after tackling your non-sentimental categories, the best way to approach coffee mugs and other sentimental items is to consider which ones you can repurpose if you're not ready to part ways. Baer recommends seeking creative ways to repurpose coffee mugs around the house. "You might consider repurposing a few," she said, "as a pen holder on your desk or a toothbrush holder in the bathroom or potting a small succulent to help clear space in your mug cabinet."

Baer knows decluttering can be overwhelming, and she said you shouldn't be surprised if things get a little messier before they get better. To combat the mess that comes alongside decluttering, she suggested taking everything out of the space first: "If you are working through the space on your own, start with a single drawer or possibly a single category (cooking utensils, mugs or entertaining pieces) rather than getting overwhelmed with everything out of cabinets and not enough time to do a thorough job before needing to put everything back." If you can, Baer said, consider hiring an organizer or organizing team to save time and help you declutter the kitchen in a day.