• Nav Social Menu

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • YouTube

Love & Renovations

  • Home
  • New? Start here!
  • Shop Our House
  • Ampersand Supply
  • Contact

May 25, 2016 · 11 Comments

Tidying Up the KonMari Way: Kitchen & Bathrooms

Organization & Cleaning

New to this series? I’m going through the KonMari method from The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up to clean my house out once and for all! You can see where I cleaned my clothes out here, where I shared my modified capsule wardrobe here, and where I cleaned out our books here. Today, we’re cleaning out our bathrooms and the kitchen!

I’ve been really looking forward to reaching the “komono” category of decluttering – this entire category is all about the miscellaneous items in your home – I’ve always been the type to love purging when it comes to clutter, so I’ve worked hard over the years on keeping our clothes and paper relatively organized – but it’s the random stuff that seems to get me. I knew this part of the challenge is where I would really start to see some big changes and feel like we’re really making some progress.

I’m breaking the “komono” category down into two separate posts – one on clearing out the kitchen and bathroom and one on decluttering our living spaces. Our bathrooms were a total disaster (I actually tackled the kitchen a few weeks ago when we did the open shelving), so I was really excited to see how much I could clear out!

Do you find that you struggle to keep your home clean and organized? Are you always decluttering, only to start over again a few months later? Then maybe the KonMari method is for you! This post will show you how to use the tips and tricks from The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up to get your kitchen and bathrooms clean and organized, once and for all! There's even a free printable checklist for the entire KonMari method, so you can be sure you don't miss a thing!

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.

I’ll be frank – this whole category feels like quite an overwhelming task for me. I’m trying to take this project very seriously, and I’m working really hard on making sure that I actually go through with it and get rid of as much as I possibly can. So, that means that I have to really take my time and go through everything in these rooms to make certain I didn’t leave anything behind that we didn’t need.

But the end result? So worth all the effort!

Pssst: If you’re decluttering your home and need some help, check out my workshop 30 Days to a Tidy{er} Home. It has daily challenges to help you stay motivated, detailed checklists so you don’t miss a thing, and includes access to a private Instagram page so you can follow along with me as I go through the process! This is a game-changer if you struggle to get your home organized. Click here to learn more – and if you’re interested in a quick sample, CLICK HERE to get it!
Do you find that you struggle to keep your home clean and organized? Are you always decluttering, only to start over again a few months later? Then maybe the KonMari method is for you! This post will show you how to use the tips and tricks from The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up to get your kitchen and bathrooms clean and organized, once and for all! There's even a free printable checklist for the entire KonMari method, so you can be sure you don't miss a thing!

Here are my top lessons from cleaning out our bathrooms and kitchen:

– I need to keep things for the life we actually live, not the one we might someday live. There were so many things (in our kitchen particularly) that I was holding onto “just in case”. The only problem was, many of those things had been sitting around for a year or longer without even being touched. They were taking up valuable space in my home just in case I needed them someday, but once I was honest with myself, I realized I probably wouldn’t ever need them.

– There are a lot of things that seem to just be in my house out of habit. I’ve gotten used to them being there, they serve no purpose, and I just haven’t gotten around to donating them. Things like a little ceramic snail in our powder room that I don’t even like that much, and a weird basket sitting under the bathroom sink that had no purpose other than holding empty paper towel rolls that we were too lazy to take to the trash can. None of those things bring me any joy or do anything useful for me, so why are they still sitting there? It’s almost as if they had become invisible to me and I didn’t even notice them anymore! As soon as I opened my eyes to what was actually in our house, I realized that there was a lot I could get rid of.

– One of the things Kondo talks a lot about in the book is that once you’ve organized your house you won’t have much need for all of the organizing systems that we all love so much. This was hard for me to swallow because when I think of organizing, I think of baskets and bins and drawer organizers. But as I went through this exercise, I realized that she was so right. Without all of the extra junk taking up space, I quickly discovered that the shelves and drawers we already have are more than enough – sure, I’m still using the baskets and drawer organizers I already had, but I didn’t have to go out and buy anything new in the name of organizing…and that was kind of revolutionary to me!

IMG_7959

– One of my favorite things I’m learning as I do this is that I shouldn’t hang onto stuff that I don’t love just because it falls under the category of something I need. For example, we have a lot of dishtowels in our kitchen that I hate. They’re old, gross, ugly, and don’t work well. But I hadn’t ever gotten rid of them because we need dishtowels! However, as I was doing this I realized that we have enough dishtowels that I do like and I can just use those while I work on replacing the ones I want to get rid of. Same thing goes for our mugs – I didn’t like the ones we had but I felt like I needed them so I kept them. But now? We donated those and are using other cups until we replace them…and it’s no big deal!

– This exercise was a great reminder to me that we have so much more junk in our house than we could ever possibly need. We donated two full trash bags of stuff and got rid of a whole garbage bag of trash in the bathrooms alone. I can’t even comprehend that. In our kitchen, we had already cleared out well over two boxes of stuff back when we installed our open shelving and I was still able to find even more stuff to donate. And these rooms are nowhere near empty now! I don’t even know how we accumulated so much stuff that we don’t need, and this made me so determined to not ever let it get to this point again.

I’m starting to feel like our house is lighter already. I’m really excited to dive into organizing our living spaces because that means I’m going to get to clear out some of Jackson’s toys. Toy clutter makes me crazier than just about anything else in this world, and Jackson has so many toys that he never plays with. It’s going to feel so good to get it back down to a reasonable amount!


I’d love to hear from you on this, though – what are some ways you work to keep clutter down in your kitchen? Anyone else ever notice that you have a ton of stuff lying around that you don’t actually like but you just keep forgetting to get rid of it?!

Previous Post: « How to Make a Huge Outdoor Chalkboard
Next Post: Friday Finds »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Elaine says

    May 27, 2019 at 7:50 pm

    I cook, I can ,I bake and I love having extra sets of bowls,measuring cups and spoons etc. I don’t want to stop in the middle of what I’m doing to wash utensils when time is a factor. And my old dishtowels are great rags to sop up spills and get tossed in the wash. For some things and some people minimizing works but sometimes all you need as far as organizing goes, is to lay your hands on what you need when you need it.

    Reply
  2. Cindy says

    February 19, 2019 at 1:18 pm

    I am moving to a smaller apartment, so this is good to cut back now instead of whe I am moving in. The bathroom is not as much as a challenge as my kitchen will be. I love to cook, and have a lot of “gadgets” to work with. Will be a challenge but I can do it.

    Reply
    • Amanda says

      February 20, 2019 at 10:21 am

      I actually just wrote specifically about organizing my kitchen, if you’re looking for tips! Here’s the post: https://www.loveandrenovations.com/declutter-kitchen/

      Good luck!

      Reply
  3. Agnes Keri says

    June 20, 2016 at 12:28 pm

    I am glad to see how fast, effective and popular the Mary Kondo book became. I received it for my birthday last fall, from one of my daughters, read it in two days, and started right away with the purging.
    Who says, you cant teach old dogs new tricks!
    At my ripe age I am still open to suggestions. I dread the thought of hoarding or just holding onto something what does not give pleasure. Our house became airier, but there is still room for improvement.
    Wish everyone good luck with this sensible and smart movement.
    Agi From Montreal

    Reply
    • Amanda says

      June 20, 2016 at 1:43 pm

      Agi – Glad to hear it worked for you as well! We’ve really enjoyed following the method so far, and it’s done wonders for our home!

      Reply
  4. Marlena Ferris says

    June 1, 2016 at 9:33 pm

    I’m so glad I’m finding people’s experiences with the KonMari Way when it comes to kitchens. I’m a May-newlywed and received some fantastic and totally needed kitchen pieces and in turn have purged 4 boxes worth of hand-me-down, not so great pot/pans/gadgets. This included 7 sauce pans and 4 different sets of measuring cups. It’s funny how throughout our clean out we kept having to remind ourselves that we only needed 1 of each kitchen item. Getting rid of so many things was a great lesson to us that in the future, we should really think through our impulse buys.

    Reply
    • Amanda says

      June 1, 2016 at 9:48 pm

      Ahh, getting married and combining households is such a good time to get some serious purging done! It can be so hard to let go of the clutter but it feels so awesome once it’s all taken care of!

      Reply
  5. Celeste says

    May 25, 2016 at 3:00 pm

    Love this! The kitchen is definitely one of those places where the gadgets and gizmos add up quickly. It’s amazing how much stuff you can get rid of that you don’t even miss.

    Reply
    • Amanda says

      May 25, 2016 at 8:07 pm

      It’s really appalling, isn’t it?! It feels so good to clear out our kitchen a bit!

      Reply
  6. Jordan says

    May 25, 2016 at 8:54 am

    This sounds like an amazing method! Would love to give it a try to get more cluttered areas of my house nice and clean. Thanks for sharing this.

    Reply
    • Amanda says

      May 25, 2016 at 8:07 pm

      I’m a huge fan so far! My house has never been more organized before! 🙂

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Hey, friend!

 photo IMG_5108 2_zpstvngxnnk.jpg

Overwhelmed by DIY? Let's do it together! I'm Amanda, and I live in the suburbs of Austin, Texas with my husband and two sons. I've taught myself how to make simple updates to help make my house a home, and I want to show you how to do it, too. Click here to learn more about us.

Looking for Something?

Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2021 · captivating theme by Restored 316