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We asked over 800 of our readers to give us 18 kitchen tips you never knew and they came up with some amazing kitchen hacks!

18 kitchen tips you NEVER knew - kitchen hacks

If you’re ready, sit back, grab your favorite drink (OK- for me it is diet coke, but for you… it is probably coffee or tea!), put your feet up, and take a few minutes to see if there is anything that you can do to improve your experiences in the kitchen.  I love kitchen tips and I love organizing, so this post was really fun!

Kitchen Tips

  •  Get beautiful, but functional plates!  Having one color scheme in your dishes makes all the difference in your kitchen cabinets.
  • Do you have wooden furniture in your kitchen? Did you know that you can polish it with olive oil and lavender oil to give a pleasant aroma?
  • 90% of all the things in your kitchen are  hardly ever used or are just simply not needed? A bit like wearing 20% of your wardrobe 80% of the time.   I do this… the wardrobe one.   I do it so much that my husband and mom started calling my favorite outfit “your uniform”. haha!
    Apart from the usual, kettle, toaster & microwave, but other things like bread makers, slow cookers and coffee makers in a cupboard until needed.
    Or, have a garage sale and get rid of all your unused clutter.    Honestly – if you don’t need the money from the sale… it is best just to donate it and be done with it!   Use it as a tax write-off.
    See how to Organize kitchen cabinets & drawers 
  • If you are short on space, a ceiling rack can be useful for pots & pans. If you have a kitchen island then you can make a really nice feature out of your kitchen by doing this.    Another tip is to hang them as they did here!PicMonkey Collage
  •  If you want to organize all your saucepan lids for easy access then a wall-mounted newspaper holder is ideal for this.
  • Trash bins in the kitchen can start to smell quite badly due to the things we throw away. If you’re not big on cleaning your bin out regularly, then you can put slices of lemon, lime, or orange in your bin every couple of days to keep it smelling fresh, until the next time that you clean it.  I love a good lemon hack! 
  •  If you are expecting guests and want your kitchen smelling nice for their arrival, simply boil 2 halves of lemon in water with cloves and rosemary leaves. This will improve the air with a pleasant aroma that will fill your kitchen and quite possibly the whole house!
  • Want to give your kitchen an updated look?  Move to all-white dishware.
  • Want to give your kitchen faucet a new-looking chrome finish? When you have cleaned them, you can finish them off with grit-free toothpaste to give the taps a brilliant shine.
  • Speaking of toothbrushes, if you have tile in your kitchen, you can use an old toothbrush to clean the grouting with a paste of bicarbonate of soda.   Oh!  I also use our old toothbrushes to clean my wedding ring.  It seriously makes such a difference!
  • Like a cup of tea? We all know that tea can stain, just look inside you cups! To protect your countertops, keep a chopping board near the kettle, so when you are making a cup of tea, the cup can rest on a surface other the worktop so that tea drips don’t stain your nice worktop. The person that submitted this tip learned the hard way!
  • Has the food been staining your containers? To prevent tomato-based sauces and soups from staining plastic containers, spraying them lightly with a non-stick cooking spray before filling them. it will save you from having to buy new ones!
  • If you have a big kitchen and you are struggling to give it some identity, you can easily break up counter space with chopping boards for decorative effect. You can even change them based on the season or mood. (Caution, if your mood changes more than 5 times a day then ignore this last paragraph as it could be quite expensive for you!)   My favorite cutting board is a Lenox glass cutting board with a winter scene from my dear friend, Julia.  I get it out every December and leave it up until the last snowfalls.  I just love it!
  • Want your silver spoons to shine again? Simply crumple up some kitchen foil in a pan, fill it half full with water and add your silver cutlery. Then, bring it to the boil and it will clean your silver for you easily and quickly.
  • If you go shopping and use the supplied plastic bags the supermarket gives you, then use these as garbage cans.  I’ll do this in the bathroom, where we don’t accumulate as much garbage as in the kitchen.
  • Similar to above, if you are heavy handed with cleaning fluids, try putting a bit of the fluid onto a cloth rather than directly onto the work surface, this will give you just the right amount needed and will save you many dollars a year!
  • Try to avoid storing fruit in the fridge (other than berries). It tends to lose its flavor when this is done. If you put bananas in the fridge, they will go brown very quickly!
  • MORE POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE: 
    clean my kitchen

    Or check out my book: 
    FREED FROM CLUTTER - BECKY MANSFIELD

 

For more tips on cleaning your kitchen (the detailed list), see my past Clean My Kitchen series here.

Hi there!

I’m Becky, a former elementary school teacher turned certified child development therapist and blogger. I work at home with my husband and together we are raising (and partially homeschooling) our four children in the Carolinas. I love diet coke, ice cream, and spending time with my family.

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4 Comments

  1. Hello Becky! These are awesome kitchen tips. Thank you! Happy Holidays!

    Vashti

  2. Wow! What wonderful tips. I am def using a few of these myself! Thanks for sharing! 🙂

  3. I love my steam mop, but tap water is NOT recommended. Use distilled water to prolong the life of your mop! ???

  4. But bananas put in the fridge stay in the state they were when you put them in for another 3-4 days. Only the peel gets dark. 😉