Image Source: Estelle Page on Flickr

Your kitchen is an important space. If you’re like the average person, it’s the space where you most enjoy spending time with good friends and family, cooking up delicious meals to share and relaxing with a glass of wine, so it is really important that your kitchen works for you.

Here are some easy things you can do to make your kitchen more convenient and make it really work for you:

Assign a Place for Everything

The kitchen can get quite chaotic. When you’re cooking, you tend to throw everything down in the first place you come to as you try not to burn the roast, but that’s why it’s so important that you assign a place for everything. That way, once the cooking is done, you can quickly do a lap of the kitchen, moving everything back to its proper place. It’s so easy for a kitchen to get messy, but if everyone knows where stuff goes, there’s really no excuse.

Boost Your Cooking Capabilities

If you’re anything like me, one of your biggest problems in the kitchen is likely to be a lack of cooking space when you’re having people over for a big meal. This is exactly what countertop ovens were made for. Countertop ovens take up very little space, but they significantly extend the amount of cooking you can do (you can fit a whole roast chicken in one), and this countertop oven review is the best that we’ve read recently, with the most information to help you decide which oven works for you, if you’re interested. Alternatively, if you have space, you could think about adding a second cooker to the kitchen, it might not be usual, but if it works for you, why not?

Declutter

If you find it hard to enjoy your time cooking and relaxing in the kitchen because there is so much stuff crammed in there that it gets hot very quickly and there’s little room to maneuverer, you know what you have to do – declutter. I know, I know, but it really is one of the best things you can do to make your kitchen space work for you, and trust me you’ll love how neat and spacious it looks once you’ve gotten rid of all those gadgets and appliances you never use.

Add the Comfort Factor

It might be the kitchen, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t bring some creature comforts like plush armchairs, ottomans, and TVs into the space. If they would make you happy, go ahead. The kitchen is, after all as much about entertaining as it is cooking.

Non-Kitchen Items Welcome

Again, just because it’s the kitchen doesn’t mean you have to stick with strictly for the kitchen stuff in there. If it would be more convenient for you to have your work desk in there, or if storing your kids’ bags and shoes in the room because that’s where they come to when they get home from school anyway, do it. It’s your kitchen, and you should feel free to use it exactly as you like.

What changes have you made to make your kitchen work for you?