Transcripts
1. Course Intro: Hello everyone and welcome. My name is Caroline
Solomon and I'm a home organizing expert
here in New York City. I work with clients to declutter and reorganize their
spaces so that they can feel like
the best version of themselves at home and beyond. If you caught my
previous course, I really offered a
more macro overview of how to declutter, organized, and clean
any space in your home. And in this course we're going
more micro and I'm sharing a more in-depth guide on
how to declutter organized, and clean the most important
areas of your home, those are the kitchen, the Bedroom slash closet,
and the bathroom. So let's dive in.
2. How to Declutter Your Bathroom: Okay. So we're starting
with the bathroom because it's an obvious
place to start. We spent a lot of time
in the bathroom and it has a tendency to get
kind of icky over time. If we've got a lot of toiletries
in there that we're not using before you grab the
garbage bag and start tossing, I really recommend
asking yourself, why am I declaring my bathroom? Am I doing it so that I can more efficiently get from point a
to point B in the morning, have a faster morning routine, have an easier, more
relaxing night-time routine. This is going to
guide the process and just make it a
lot more deliberate also is helpful to
go into the bathroom and just take stock
of what's working. Take a mental note of what you like and what you don't like. And this is again,
going to guide the process and just
make it more deliberate. So once you have
accomplished these things, It's now time to grab a
garbage bag and start tossing those clearly identifiable
expired items, things that are trashed, pull everything out and
look for expiration dates. If items don't have
expiration dates, then use an educated guess. Use your sense of
sight, smell, touch. If the self tanner smells off, if the login is gunky and
it's separating them, these are good indicators that it's time to throw them out. And if you have cosmetics that maybe the foundation is separating or the nail
polishes separating. These again are good indicators that they have
probably gone bad. And if you have used
these cosmetics, maybe that glittery eye
shadow is just not for you. You can pass them
along to family and friends and they
will actually be used. Same goes for unused
beauty products. If you have unused
beauty products, bath products, hair care products that
are just not for you. Maybe you don't like the scent. You can consider donating those to your local
homeless shelter. And they will
actually really go a long way and make
someone else's day. And same goes for freebies. We have a tendency to just collect a lot of free
stuff because we're like, Wow, Of course it's free. I'm going to use this. But sometimes what ends
up happening is that these freebies accumulate and they just end up
taking up space. I recommend using
them for travel. Or you can give
them to family or friends or donate to
a homeless shelter. You have options. They don't need to sit there
if you're not using them. Now we're heading on over to expired medications
and supplements. Open up that medicine
cabinet and take a look at what has expired. If it's Ginseng supplement that you used once and
it expired in 2010, toss that the
prescription medications have to be disposed responsibly. So I actually recommend bringing them to
your local pharmacy, at least that's what
you can do in the US. Double-check what the
protocol is in your country. We're going to move on to
the shower or the bath tub. If you have a lot of loofah
is that are hanging out or kind of gunky razors
that have seen better days. It might be time to toss
those and maybe swap them out for more sustainable
options that just last longer. I recommend using a dry brush because these last
couple of years, now we're talking towels. Just take a look
at what you love, what you use a lot and what you just haven't really been using. We have a tendency to
hold onto extra towels. But what happens is that
those towels can be gunky. They are afraid, maybe
they're bleached. Consider dropping those off
at your local animal shelter. They will take them there
or you can cut them up and turn them
into cleaning rags. Okay. So we've come to the end of
de-cluttering your bathroom. We've tackled the products. Hopefully your space
feels a lot roomier. You feel like you can
breathe a little bit better when you have
fewer products. You don't have to
worry as much about maintaining them and cleaning
them and tending to them. In the next episode, we're going to talk about how to make sense of this space and how to organize it according
to your needs.
3. How to Organize Your Bathroom 1: Okay, so you've declared your
bathroom, you feel amazing. You have all of this
space and now it's time to dive into organization. So before you rush over to the container store to stock up on a lot of
organizing products. It's really more important
that you create a map for yourself where you're
putting things back in the same place every time. And more importantly, you're putting things
back in a way that makes sense to your organizing
style and your routine. So let's start with
a medicine cabinet. I'm a huge fan of
the medicine cabinet for storing your
everyday essentials. All you have to do is just
pretty straightforward. Open it and put your
everyday skincare essentials at eye level and put them also in the order
that you use them. So your serum, your moisturizer, your sunscreen, and
that's just going to make a very big difference
in your morning. It's going to run on autopilot. And the same is true
for your makeup. You just want to put your capsule collection really
the essentials that you use on an everyday basis at eye level on the bottom
shelf, mid shelf. And this is just going to make your life a lot easier
for the top shelf. So you can use those
for backup products, duplicates, less frequently used prescription medications
or supplements. And if you don't have
a medicine cabinet, then it makes sense to store your everyday skincare and
makeup on your bathroom sink. But keep in mind
here that clutter has a tendency to
attract other clutter. So you really want to
contain those essentials and some kind of tray or
some kind of lazy Susan so that they don't
spread out and just make your sink and bathroom look messy underneath
the bathroom sink. So again, this is a great
place to store backups, but you wanna make
sure that this area is as open and roomy as possible. Hopefully, you did
cluttered and you had a chance to just create
a lot more space here. And so it's good to
keep it that way. There's no need to stock up on tons of extra shampoos
and conditioners. When we all have a
lot of access to these products through
Amazon or local pharmacy. It's just better to keep
this space clutter-free. So with that in mind,
It's a really great idea to categorize your
different products. Hair care, skincare, body
care, back hair, etc. Whatever you use frequently, you're going to put those
in their own kinds of bins. If you're organizing styles to just reach for
things very easily, you don't like to
pull things out. Then it makes sense to
have low drop front bins, which will make your
life a lot easier. If you like things more neat and contained and kind
of closed off, then you can use drawers. And you really just
want to make sure that you're labeling given or drawer because we have
a ton of toiletries and things just
have a tendency to get lost in the shuffle if
you're not labeling anything. Now you can go and
measure the dimensions of your cabinets and your medicine cabinets
and your shelves. And then you can go online or to the Container Store and just see what products
work best for you. And I have given you a couple of examples like the Lazy Susan, the drop front bins, but go and fill it
out for yourself. We are going to interact with
them on an everyday basis, so make sure that they
work for you, though, that is organizing one-on-one
for your bathroom. I hope this was helpful
and now stay tuned for how to clean everything
in your bathroom.
4. How to Clean Your Bathroom: Okay. So your bathrooms D cluttered. It's organized. It looks great. It's one thing to
have it look tidy, but quite another thing
to keep it clean. But with a few simple
tools and ingredients, you can make your bathroom
cleaning experience just a lot more
seamless, a lot easier. It's going to eventually
become second nature to you. I first really recommend
wearing comfortable clothes. So put on your workout clothes, maybe put on some
exciting, upbeat music. Listened to a podcast, make sure you have some water close by because
cleaning your bathroom can be a very labor
intensive activity. Once that is all in order, you're going to grab
your cleaning caddy. And I've mentioned
earlier if you have some cleaning products
already in your bathroom, then that's also
a great system to have in place in terms of breaking down your bathroom into different zones or
different surfaces. It's really up to you. You can clean the
mirrors all in one go. The surfaces all in one go via faucets and
appliances all in one go. It's really just up to you. I personally prefer to clean up different
areas of the bathroom. The very first thing
you wanna do is just blackout those bathroom
rungs if you have them, this is going to
get rid of any dust and eventually you're
going to vacuum it up, so don't worry about it. And you're also going to start
removing the wastebasket, anything that's on the surface, anything that might interfere
with cleaning the bathroom. Once that's all out of the way, it's time to start cleaning
the bathroom sink. So you can clean the bathroom sink with some all-purpose
cleaner and a rag, or you can use a
microfiber cleaning cloth, and then you're going to move
on to the bathroom sink. I recommend using equal parts, vinegar and water spray
to just remove any gunk. If you have a significantly
gunky or sink, then you can sprinkle
some baking soda into the sink and scrub it
down with a soapy sponge. Then you're going to rinse down the sink and it will
really look sparkling new. Now we're going to
focus on faucets. You can spray down the area with equal parts of
vinegar and water, or you can spray down the
faucets with equal parts, rubbing alcohol and water, you're going to
wipe it down with a microfiber cleaning cloth
and that's just going to buff that area and make it look really polished
and brand new. Then we're going to look
up and what do we see? Our bathroom mirror,
you just have to spray it down with some equal
parts, vinegar and water. Grab a microfiber
cleaning cloth and just wiped down and
an S-like motion. And for extra buffing, if you want to make it
look super polished, you can flip the
microfiber cleaning cloth over and then give it
a once over again. Now it's on over to everyone's favorite thing
to clean in the home, which is the toilet. No one really likes
to clean the toilet, but it has to be done. So I recommend cleaning the toilet bowl with
hydrogen peroxide. It's just a great disinfectant and it also cleans in
brightens your bowl. You can dump half
cup into the bowl there and you're
going to let it sit for about 20 minutes. So while you're doing other
things in the bathroom, it's just kind of working
its magic start by cleaning the toilet itself from top to bottom with some
all-purpose cleaner. You're going to lift
up the top seat, you're going to lift
up the lower seat and you're going
to spray it down, making sure that you're also spraying underneath
the toilet as well because this is and
often forgotten area. If you want to use
a rag, you can, if you don't want to use arrive, you can use some
paper towel while the hydrogen
peroxide is sitting. It's now time to wander
on over to the shower. So you really want to make
sure that you're cleaning the shower adequately so that it doesn't collect mold and mildew, remove any bath and body care that's hanging out at the
bottom of the shower, collect any hair or anything that's
lingering on the floor. You can spray down
the glass shower door with that same equal
parts vinegar and water. You're going to
spray on both sides. You're going to
wipe down surfaces in the shower with some
all-purpose cleaner. You're going to
wipe it with a rag. You're also going to
spray down the faucet and the shower head with some
equal parts vinegar and water. And you're going to
wipe that down with a microfiber cleaning cloth
so the showers looking good. And finally, if you want to deal with mold and mildew prevention, then I recommend spraying the grout lines with
some hydrogen peroxide. And those grout lines
are not only going to look clean and brand new, they're going to be free
of mold and mildew. Once that has been sorted, it's on to the bathtub by recommend using
a cleaning powder. I'm a big fan of bona me because
it's very simple to use. It has a very mild abrasive
made a feldspar powder. All you got to do
is just sprinkle it onto the bathtub surface. You can use a damp sponge
to wipe it down and then rinse and your bathtub
will look sparkling clean. Now, if you have a dirtier
bathtub to deal with, I recommend using that
same baking soda and dish soap that I recommended
earlier for your sinks, then you're going to just
spray down the faucet with equal parts vinegar
and water and Buffett with a microfiber
cleaning cloth. And now all we have to do
is just a few more things. Look down at the floor. How's the floor
looking if there's some hair and stuff that just
needs to be vacuumed up, grab your vacuum and just start vacuuming thoroughly in all
of those nooks and crannies, you might have to
use the crevice tool here in-between your cabinets. Now's the time to
clean the floor. So you can use two cups of water and a teaspoon of dish
soap as a floor concentrate. And you can actually put that in a wet mop container and
just spray down the floor. Another alternative
is to actually just use a rag and clean
the floor by hand. This is all depending on
how ambitious you are and whether you want to
clean your floor by hand. So you can do that. You could also use equal parts, rubbing alcohol and
water if you'd like to disinfect your
floor in the process, now that the floor
is looking good, it's time to put all of those objects back that we
took out in the bathroom, dump the wastebasket, put
the wastebasket back, lay out your back math. As a quick bonus, you can polish your objects that are usually on your bathroom sink using microfiber cleaning cloth
just to bust them down. And this is going to just be the extra cherry
on top that makes your bathroom look super clean. That's it for our weekly
bathroom cleaning routine. Just know that with practice, you will become a lot more adept at cleaning your bathroom. And it's all about using just very simple tools,
ingredients, and techniques. So I hope this was helpful. Please stay tuned for my
next series on how to clean the clutter and organize
your bedroom and closet.
5. How to Declutter Your Bedroom: Today we are talking
all about how to declutter your bedroom. If you've watched
my first course, I offered some
general tips on how to declutter any
space in your home. And today we're
going a little bit more specific and micro, you're going to work your
way around your room. And depending on how much stuff
you have in your bedroom, you might need a ton of heavy-duty garbage bags
and reusable tote, or you might need very few. But before you even rush
to get some garbage bags, I really recommend going
into your bedroom and seeing what's working
and what's not working. For the most part, we all want our bedrooms to be a place, refuge,
calm, relaxation. If we have a lot of stuff in there that maybe
doesn't even belong, this can interfere with our ability to just have
a good night sleep, to feel cozy and at peace there. So let's start with the
surfaces in the bedroom. If you have a dresser
in your bedroom, chances are maybe you
have some trinkets there. Take a look at these things and just actually pick them up
and hold them in your hands. If you feel totally
blog about it, you can donate it. If it's broken, you can toss
it to moving on to books. If you have a bunch of
books in your bedroom, now's a good time to take
stock of what you're reading, what you're not reading. We all have the best of intentions when it comes to
reading stacks of books, but sometimes they just kinda collect dust on our nightstand. Maybe consider donating
it to your local library, donating it to your local
thrift store, charity shop. You can also sell these books, their apps like Ziff it, which is really great
that I recommend. Let's talk about nightstand. If you have a drawer
in your nightstand, take a look, toss and
anything that's broken, maybe it's a lotion
that's expired, maybe it's Vaseline, that's kinds of products
that we can toss. So now onto jewelry. Great thing about de-cluttering your jewelry is that it
makes the items that you actually love it stand out more and therefore you're more
likely to wear them. Chances are there some
necklaces, bracelets, earrings here that you just
haven't worn in years. Maybe their tarnished. Maybe you have a
set of earrings and you've lost one of the earrings. If there's a necklace
that is nice, maybe you can bring it
to your local jeweler or try and resell it on places
like the real, real. Now's a chance to take
a look at your closet, depending on whether you're sentimental or you have a hard time getting
rid of things, this will be a easy or not
so easy place to declutter. I always recommend starting
with the easier areas in your closet so that you
can build up momentum. Things like hangers,
wire hangers, dry cleaning hangers
because they have a tendency to warp our
clothes over time. Actually, other thing
to get rid of here in your closet or your
threadbare holy socks. So I recommend maybe
repurposing those holy socks. You can use them for
adjusters around the house. You can use them to clean or you can just toss
them responsibly. And if you have a lot of
single socks like this, you can consider actually
compiling them and donating them to local
homeless shelter so long as these don't have holes. Let's talk about
T-shirts or any kinds of clothes that have
pit stains on them. There are certain things
that you can do like soaking your white t-shirts in. Oxy clean. Sometimes Oxy clean
doesn't even do the trick. So if it's an old undershirt, then I recommend just
turning that shirt into a rag, moving onto shoes. Chances are maybe
you have shoes in your closet that are
just collecting dust. You haven't worn them in years, maybe you're holding
onto them for that someday occasion
when you'll need them. I recommend really just
taking all your shoes out of the closet and trying
them on if you have time, ask yourself, Do I like these? Do I love them? What I buy them again today? And that's really a
game-changing question to ask yourself for
shoes that are beyond repair and tennis shoes
and you can just recycle them responsibly is it's not really a good idea to
wear these sneakers. It's bad support for your feet, not good for your backs. Gifts, close that we've received
as maybe hand me downs, things that we receive for
a birthday or for holidays. There's nothing wrong
with getting rid of something that isn't
bringing you joy. If it's making you feel guilty, just looking at it. There's really no
sense in holding onto these kinds of items really
go through your closet, take each item out physically. It doesn't elicit
positive emotions. It doesn't need to be in your closet, donate your clothes, you can sell your nicer clothes to places like thread
up or the real, real or local consignment
shops in your area. So I hope these
tips were helpful. Remember that your bedroom is really whatever
you want it to be, but it shouldn't be
a place that's full of stuff that doesn't belong, but doesn't bring you joy. That doesn't make you feel
at peace and relaxed. Stay tuned for the next video on how to organize your bedroom.
6. How to Organize Your Bedroom: Okay, so you've
declared your bedroom. Hopefully it feels a lot
more spacious, open, airy, and just overall more relaxing when it comes to
organizing your bedroom, I really like to keep to
a less is more approach. I think that once
you start piling on all of the organizational
solutions and the products, things can start to get
pretty cluttered pretty fast. Why don't we start
with the nightstand. I do recommend using some
kind of drawer organizer. You could use Bamboo organizers. This is a nice,
sustainable option. You can keep backups
of products in there. They will stay nice
and organized. They're on top of
the nightstand. I recommend keeping this surface
pretty clear of clutter, really only storing
the essentials there, maybe hand cream, eye
mask, essential oils, whatever you use to
fall asleep, a book, your nightstand is a really
great place to keep minimal because it is one of the first things that we see when we wake up in the morning. Let's talk about the bed and specifically
underneath the bed. So I really recommend storing
off-season close here, sheets, extra towels,
suitcases, that sort of thing. Canvas, storage bag is great. One made of cotton
when made of linen. These are all great options. So if you have a dresser or you have other kinds
of open shelving, chances are maybe you have
some jewelry line around. And if you want to use
your jewelry more often, that helps to give each
item of jewelry a homed. A great solution here is an
open tray with dividers, allows you to see all of your
earrings, your necklaces, earrings very quickly, and just retrieve them very
quickly as well. Let's talk about
everybody's favorite area when it comes to storage
solutions, the closet, when we're organizing
our closet, we have a tendency
to go overboard on the storage products,
the sweater dividers. We need this special
kinds of hangers, we need this special
kinds of bins. But really what's more
important here is that your closet has space
and room to breathe. You have clothes that aren't kinda crammed on
the clothing rack. I recommend having
one uniform hanger. It's going to make your clothes
really pop and stand out. And it's just going to make your closet looks so much more uniform and neat and tidy
above your clothing rack. Maybe you have a shelf here. Maybe you want to store
your sweaters here. And there's no obligation
to use sweater dividers. But if you maybe have five or six sweaters and
you're low on space, these just really help
keep each column contain. When it comes to shoe storage, you have tons of options. You can use a bookcase, which is what I
personally have in my closet and repurpose it. For shoes. You can use
a smaller shoe rack. You can use an over
the door shoe rack. You have tons of options. I do think it's helpful to have a few baskets in your closet because it's a great place to store those clothes that you
don't want to wear anymore. Once it's fully, you can donate
them, you can sell them. That's just a good landing place for those kinds of clothes. Another basket maybe
for dust bags or tights or other little bits and bobs that we generally
store in the closet. And like me, you don't have
a dresser in your bedroom, then it helps to
have some kind of drawer solution in your
closet door and these socks, workout gear, pajamas,
that sort of thing. And one that I recommend is
just a very simple wire. Your solution that you can
just slide open and a pinch. And it just makes
getting ready very, very easy because all of your clothes are in
one place as opposed to in the dresser and
then in the closet. Hooks never underestimate
the power of a hook to really transform your space and use them to hang your rows, hats, belts, purses, really
the list goes on here. And if you do have a
ton of bags and you're someone who likes to
quickly retrieve your bags, then I do recommend some
kind of PEG rack or PEG rail if you prefer to display your persist on
different shelves, It's totally up to you. So that is bedroom
organization, one-on-one. I hope I've conveyed
that it really comes down to your own personal
organizing style, how you want your
bedroom closet to look. These are different
little solutions that can help you along the way, but you by no means need to pile on the
organizing products. It's really just more important
that the items that you have in your bedroom
and in your closet, or things that you love, things that bring you joy. I hope this was helpful. Please stay tuned for the next
video where we're going to talk about how to
clean your bedroom.
7. How to Clean Your Bedroom: Okay. So you've
organized your bedroom, everything has a home, everything has a place to live. And now we're going
to talk about how to clean your bedroom. Cleaning your bedroom
really runs on a spectrum from picking up close
from the floor, tossing them in the hamper
to doing a more deep clean like dusting your walls, the less stuff that you have
to sort through and clean, the easier this
experience is going to be when you have a
clutter-free area, it's just going to make dusting and wiping
down surfaces so much easier from the get-go before we even talk
about deep cleaning, having some kind of
daily cleaning routine. And that's really
just remembering to put your clothes in the hamper after
you take them off, tossing any trash
and he scraps of paper receipts, mugs, tissues. Well, don't tell us the mugs
put that in the dishwasher. It's just going to make cleaning your bedroom so much easier. With that in mind, let's start with
tidying and organizing. Really important to get rid of, clutter anything
that doesn't belong. You have clothes that
are just hanging out their torsos and the hamper. If you have clean clothes that
maybe you did the laundry, forgot to fold those clothes, time to fold those clothes, put them away and
toss any trash here, you're going to toss
it into a garbage bag and then just get rid of it. So now is the time to
dive into cleaning and make sure that you have all of your tools here in
the same place. You have your cleaning caddy, a vacuum, you're
microfiber cloth. Just have it all in one spot so that you're not
running around. It's time to tackle
the base boards. You can use a
microfiber cloth here, wipe it down with
some all-purpose cleaner and you're
just gonna get rid of the dust that
coats these areas. I recommend doing this pretty routinely because
it's just one of those things that makes
a huge difference in how clean your space looks. If you have a lot of dust
on your base boards, then skip the all-purpose
cleaner because it's just gonna be
kinda gunky and growth. If you have doors here, you can wipe down
the little grooves. Stores with the same cloth. They have a tendency
to get dusty as well. Now we're going to
dive into surfaces. If you have a
dresser, window sill, nice stands, we're going to
remove all of this stuff. So use some all-purpose cleaner here and a microfiber cloth, the S pattern here to
do an adequate clean. And before putting
all of your trinkets, whatever you have back, makes sure to do a wipe down there as well with
the microfiber cloth because just gonna
get rid of some dust and just make those
items look a lot neater. Moving on to lamps, you can use a lint roller
here to get rid of dust. This is a great little hack. If you don't have lint roller, you could use the
brush attachment of your vacuum to get
rid of dust and wipe down the base
of your lamps with some all-purpose cleaner
and a microfiber cloth. And that's just going to make the nightstand area
look nice and clean. If you have an upholstered beds, the same lint roller to
just get rid of dust. If you have a pet like I do, pet hair is going to
be a thing there. So just make sure you're getting rid of all that pet hair. And now's the time maybe
to wash the sheets. Depending on how you space
out your bedroom cleaning and your laundry, It's a good idea to strip the sheets and wash
them once a week, run it on a hot cycle to
disinfect them, kill bacteria. And you really only need two tablespoons of detergent if you have mirrors and your
bedroom or artwork, Now's a good time
to wipe those down. You can remove dust from the tops of the
artwork and mirrors with a microfiber cleaning cloth or a duster, whatever you have. And then you can spray some equal parts
vinegar and water spray onto a microfiber cloth and then just wipe
down those surfaces. We've tackled dust, we tackled
surfaces and now we're going to look down and see how we're doing with the floors. And you have like a shag rug or one of those
kind of throw rugs, it's a good opportunity
to kind of walk it out, release that dust because we're just going to vacuum
it up in a moment. You're going to
grab your vacuum. You're going to vacuum
in one corner of the room and work your way out. You're going to vacuum as
well underneath the rugs because those have a tendency
to collect desks there. If you have a wastebasket, anything that you use
to collect the trash, you're going to dump it
into your main trash, bring the wastebasket back in. And really that is
it in a nutshell, that is bedroom
cleaning one-to-one. It's not so difficult, not as difficult as
say a kitchen or a bathroom because there aren't a lot of moving parts here. So really so long as you are paying attention to daily
routine maintenance, it's going to make the deeper
cleans so much easier. It's going to make
the deeper claims just a regular clean. So I hope this was helpful. Please stay tuned
for the next series on how to declutter, organized, and
clean your kitchen.
8. How to Declutter Your Kitchen: Today we're talking
all about how to declutter your kitchen. And the whole reason why
it's important to declutter your kitchen is because you really want to
use your kitchen. You want to be able to cook and bake in it very seamlessly. So you don't have to
do this all in one go. If you're starting with a ton of stuff where you get
overwhelmed easily, you can really chunk
out your time. You're going to work your
way around the kitchen as you do with any other
de-cluttering activity, you're going to grab
your garbage bags, your reusable totes
for donations, and you're going
to go from there. Let's just start
with the pantry. Like any de-cluttering session, it really pays to
just take everything out and take a look at
anything that's expired, anything that's stale,
expired ******. Take out your spice collection. See if there's anything
that's gone bad. ****** last between
six to 12 months, they will just lose their potency and their
flavor over time. Let's talk about the fridge. We all have a tendency
to get excited, maybe about different
condiments. And then they just sit in our fridge and
we don't use them. In my case, that's like a pomegranate molasses
that I got on a whim. So whatever you have kind
of lurking in your fridge, pull it all out and
see what's expired, dispose of it properly. Let's talk about the freezer. Anything that is covered
in freezer burn, maybe it's some ice
cream, some frozen bread. Let's just dispose of it. If it's some kind of stew or frozen prepared meal
that we haven't eaten. Moving on to kitchen gadgets, now we have duplicates or maybe even triplicate
of the same thing. Maybe it's extra wooden
spoons for measuring spoons, extra whiskey or
whatever for you. Take a look at what you use regularly and donate the rest. If it's beyond repair, maybe it's super
rusty or it's broken, it's time to just dispose
of it so that you can free up space
and these drawers so that it's a lot easier to just reach for
something when you need it in a pinch,
pots and pans. When we have tons of
extra paths that are in the way that we
don't use regularly. It's just going to be
really cumbersome. See what you're using, and then consider donating
the rest Tupperware. You just have a ton of
Tupperware with missing lens. It's time to recycle
them and free up space for actual Tupperware
that have lives. I personally really recommend the glassware because
it lasts a lot longer. It's more environmentally
friendly. And as a quick, very easy hack to avoid losing
your lives in the future, all you have to do is
just place the lid on top of the base and
store it that way and you'll never lose track of the lids plastic cutlery
if you have a tendency to collect a lot of cutlery
over time and it just sits in your drawer
cabinet collecting dust. Maybe you can put it in your car or bring it to the office. Months. How many months
do we all really need? Take out your mug collection. Chances are you
have a few in there that you're not using regularly. So donate them and it's
just going to free up space and make your morning
routine just a lot easier. You'll be able to reach
with a month that you love. Same goes for shot glasses. Maybe you have a lot of beer
Qsys that you hold onto. Take these things out and see which ones you use regularly if it's just a total novelty and you're just not
going to use it, then it's time to donate it. Let's talk about
kitchen appliances. Let's take a look at what you're using regularly and what can go. It's okay to hold onto
ones that you use maybe once a month or even once a year if you use them
for the holidays. But the others that
maybe you tried, like the blow torch or the waffle maker or
the bingo game maker, and you just aren't going
to use them and sell them. Or you can give them
to friends and family. But the pasta maker, if you tried it and you're
not going to use it again, it's just going to
clutter up your space. Finally, I want to talk about a very often forgotten
area of the kitchen, which is underneath
the kitchen sink. We have a tendency to clutter up this space with just a
ton of cleaning products, a ton of just extra bits and bobs that we
don't use regularly. So take everything
out if you have cleaning products that you
haven't touched in years, it's time to get rid of them. You really don't
need as much as you think so you don't have
to do this all in one go, whether it's over
the course of a week or a couple of months, take your time and eventually you will get
there and you'll feel just so much better and so much
more at peace in your space. The next video we are
talking all about how to organize your kitchen
once you've declared it.
9. How to Organize Your Kitchen: So how you organize
your kitchen really depends on your
organizing style. If you're someone who
likes to see everything, have everything out
for easy access, or if you'd like
things tucked away, your kitchen is going
to look different. Why don't we start
with the pantry. If you have very narrow
shelf like mine, then it makes sense to use some kind of three
tier organizer here you can stack dry
goods, canned goods, anything under the sun, and it just makes it a lot easier for you to
see everything at first glance instead of having those products kind of
get lost in the shuffle. If you have a larger pantry, then maybe you could use baskets here if baskets are your thing. So let's talk about how
you organize your pantry. This is really simple. It's just a matter of
combining like items, categorizing all of your
different food groups and then organizing
them accordingly. This is going to avoid purchasing duplicates because I was out of powdered sugar, but no, the powdered sugar was
just in a different place. So you want to
combine baking goods, pastas, whole grain cereals,
snacks, dried fruit. This is just going to keep
everything organized. So if you eat pasta regularly, it makes sense to store
these at eye level. And if you bake less
frequently than it makes more sense to store these
items on a higher shelf. And that's really
all there is to it. So the NADH from the pantry, we will talk about the fridge. The same rules apply here. It's just a matter of zoning out your different food groups and organizing them according
to frequency of use. So if you have leftovers and you want
to remember to eat them, just keep them at eye level. A nice trick that I like to
use is the Lazy Susan here. If you have a ton of condiments, It's easy for those
to get lost in the shuffle on the side
of the fridge also want to stress here
that you don't need a ton of products to
organize your freezer. It's just more important that
you can see everything at first glance and that things
are organized side-by-side. Things are filed,
folded essentially, you can categorize
the different areas. I know maybe frozen fruit, frozen meals, frozen
meat, whatever you have. And this is going
to make sense of your freezer kitchen
utensil drawer, depending on how
large or small it is, it's just more important
that it's only stocked with utensils that you
use on a regular basis. You can get those
drawer organizers and then just
combine like items. If you want to have easier
access to your utensils, you can actually put those in a utensil organizer
right by your stove. Again, it all depends
on whether you want to see those utensils out
and if you cook a lot, moving on to ******, I have a pull-up spice rack here because this is what
Suits this area. If you have a drawer,
then you can put those ****** in a
three-tier spice Organizer. Let's talk about your mugs, your glasses, your wine glasses. If you drink wine less frequently
than you drink coffee, then it makes more sense to
keep your wine glasses on the topmost shelf
and keep those mugs within reach and keep your
everyday glasses within reach. The same is true with how
you organize your plate where keep those everyday
plates within reach. And maybe the less frequently
used plates can go on the second shelf or off to
the right or off to the left. Keep your everyday Tupperware,
glassware close by. If you have a drawer
or another cabinet, you can store them separately. Just makes sure
that the lids are stacked on top of the bases and you'll
never lose track of them. It's a really simple
half overhead. We have some appliances. You could store them
there or you can store them again on
the lower shelf. Moving on to the junk drawer, do you make sure
that when you're organizing your junk drawer, you have some kind of bamboo
organizer or some kind of insert to make sense
of all of that chaos. This is just going to make
reaching for the rubber band, whatever you need in a pinch, a lot easier with
the silverware. The same rules apply here. You can use a silverware
organizer and just keep whatever you are using
on a very regular basis here. Maybe it's serving spoons or a cake knife or a bread knife, things like that can go
here, pots and pans. There's no right way or no one way to organize
your pots and pans. You can use a pot and pan organizer and just
insert that in your drawer. I have a particular door
that doesn't really allow any kind of
organizer to fit in there, but the nesting method
really works fine here, sheet pans and bake where I have a couple of
sheet pans here, just stacked one on
top of the other. And I also have some
cake pans nearby. If you want, again,
to use some kind of organizer to line up your bake
ware can totally use that. Finally, I want to
talk about weirdly, my favorite place to
organize and the kitchen, which is underneath
the kitchen sink. If you have a small
kitchen as I do, then I think it's a
great place to store a trash can to store
your recyclables. Because if your kitchen is small and you have
a big trash can, the whole kitchen is just
going to read trash cans. Think it's a great idea to store some kind of
cleaning caddy here. You can also store a
two-tiered rack here, but really all you need underneath the kitchen sink
or your cleaning products, trash bags, maybe dishwasher
detergent to that. Is it when it comes to
organizing your kitchen, I want to stress
that it's just more important that you
create categories for your products and
that you're actually committing to
putting those things back where they belong. This is far more
important than purchasing a ton of organizing
products for your kitchen. So happy organizing. I hope some of these tips and product suggestions
were helpful. And in the next video,
we're going to talk about how to clean your kitchen.
10. How to Clean Your Kitchen: Okay, so let's talk about
how to clean your kitchen. Cleaning your
kitchen, of course, runs on a spectrum
that goes from maybe just giving your surfaces and
counters a quick wipe down. Two more deep cleaning like getting rid of the gunk
inside of your oven. And today we're really
just talking about how to clean your kitchen
on a weekly basis. Depending on how frequently
you use your kitchen, you might have to do some daily maintenance
which will make the weekly cleaning
routines just a lot easier. So sweeping the floor, getting rid of crumbs, wiping down counters, wiping down the stove
top if you cooked, why don't we start
with a fridge. The fridge can become kind of a mess if we're
not looking at what we have on a regular
basis once a week. Really. Take a look at what's in there. Take stock of what you have, what you need to eat
before it goes bad. And this is a great
opportunity if you'd like to wipe down surfaces, use equal parts,
vinegar and water here, make those fridge shelves
look really nice and clean. And for more deeper
cleans with your fridge, you can use warm soapy
water and if you want to, you can keep a box of
baking soda in your fridge. This is going to deodorizers it. You only need to swap it out
maybe two to three months. The oven, if you have a
stainless steel Oven, it's really easy to just wipe
down those surfaces with equal parts vinegar and water or even equal parts rubbing
alcohol and water, it's going to make your
oven sparkle and shine. There's something about
rubbing alcohol that just works wonders
with stainless steel. So wiped down the surfaces with a microfiber
cleaning cloth, you can give the burner
grades a quick rinse under warm water or warm soapy water depending on how dirty they are. And if your oven
itself is kinda gross, and maybe you made something
that got a little messy. Sprinkle some baking
soda on the oven, squeeze half a lemon, let it sit for ten minutes, scrub with a rough sponge and
then rinse with a damp rag. You don't have to do
this on a weekly basis. It's something really
that maybe needs to be done every few months or so. If you'd like, as a bonus, you can actually remove those knobs and you
just kinda clean the areas where the knobs rest because these
tend to get gunky. You definitely don't have to
do this on a weekly basis. However, if your microwave is looking kinda gross and
it's high time to clean it, I recommend just getting a bowl, filling it with water, butting a lemon and squeezing
the juice into the bowl, you can just microwave
that for a few minutes. And then once those
three minutes are up, let that sit for a
couple of minutes and then just wipe it down with
a microfiber cleaning cloth, rag, paper, towel,
whatever you have on hand and it's just going
to lift a way that Greece. So let's talk about
the dishwasher. It contrary to what
you might think, the dishwasher itself needs
to be cleaned every so often, wiped down at the inside of those walls with some
all-purpose cleaner. And then if you have
a dishwasher filter, you can remove it, rinse it with some
warm soapy water, get rid of any food debris, anything that's stuck in there. You can also, if you'd like, put two cups of vinegar in a
Pyrex or some kind of dish, and put that on the top rack of your dishwasher with
your other dishes. And the vinegar is just going to create steam that's going to break down any grease
or gunk that's hanging out on the walls
of the dishwasher. Why don't we move on to the kitchen sink
about once a week. It's a great idea to do a deeper clean than simply just
rinsing the sink with water.
Caroline Solomon, Neat home, neat mind.
