seven tips for refreshing your kitchen and pantry for spring

When the hint of spring is in the air, it’s a great time to refresh your home space to welcome in the new season. One of the best ways to do that is to pay special attention to your kitchen and pantry. This is especially true if you’ve been a little lax during those winter months.

Follow these seven tips to give your kitchen and pantry a spring makeover:

clear the cupboards and shelves
Start going through the kitchen systematically, going through your cupboards, your pantry, and the fridge itself. You’ll probably find serving dishes you forgot all about, doubles or triples of spices and seasonings, and some expired items that need to be tossed.  Take everything out one cabinet at a time and go through it.

get rid of excess
Do you need ten traveller’s mugs to take your coffee to go? While they may be pretty, you probably don’t need more than a few.  Take things like that and either donate them or store them in the garage. Give the pantry the same attention when it comes to something you’re not going to use – donate them if they’re still within the expiration period.

and if not, throw it out
With the fridge and pantry, any food you find that is expired needs to go. If you have a compost to put old produce in, great! If not, toss it.

wipe down everything
Cabinets collect dust and grunge from your cookware. Give those shelves a good cleaning and be sure they’re dry. You can update the look with contact paper to make cleanup easier the next time. In your fridge, it’s essential to keep good habits intact, so remove any shelves or drawers that can come out and wash them with warm soapy water.

get bins to organise better
Now for the fun part! You’ll likely find that you could use a few organizing tools to make sense of your cabinets and pantry. Stop letting sauce packets fall all over the place or rummaging for spices. Countless things can make organizing your space a breeze and make you love your kitchen again.

be smart about where you put your food
In the fridge, organize your food so that things that need to be used first are in the front. In your pantry, arrange things by type, like boxes and cans, for example, and then organize them in their respective sections.

create a master list of essentials
Each week, making a menu of what you’re going to make helps eliminate waste. Keeping a master list of the essential things you usually keep on hand (like beans, pasta, rice, etc.) will prevent you from buying more spaghetti when you have five boxes of it or remind you that you’re out of spaghetti sauce.

With these kitchen and pantry-perfecting tips, you’ll spring into better meals in no time!