How to clean your kitchen drawers and cupboards without losing your mind

Author: Clare Flynn | Posted: Tuesday 7th July '09

Spring-cleaning is an excellent excuse to sort out those kitchen cupboards.

It’s surprising how mucky the shelves get as a result of the to and fro of your crockery, pans and dry goods – not to mention the cutlery drawers, which somehow always seem to accumulate a vast quantity of crumbs and grime.

Go about this task very systematically. Do NOT repeat NOT try to do more than one cupboard at a time or you’ll risk ending up with a vast quantity of stuff spread about the kitchen, just as the will to put it all back it ebbs away due to the size of the task. Instead the one at a time approach means you can do one cupboard or drawer every day if you have limited time and want to spread the job out. Or if you do intend to do it in one go you’ll at least break up the task.

Take everything out of the cupboard and lay it out on newspaper on the kitchen table or work-surface (avoid the floor if you don’t want to get dizzy from jumping up and down).

Use this as a de-clutter opportunity. If it is a food-store cupboard, now is the time to liberate that bottle of truffle liqueur you acquired ten years ago in Umbria and that six years past its use-by date tin of quails in aspic you got in a Christmas hamper. If it’s a crockery or pan cupboard, then ask yourself when you plan to use that gadget that has gathered dust and you had forgotten you even owned. Your local charity shop or car boot sale will find a much better use for it than you ever will.

Give the inside of the cupboard a good wash with a solution of warm dishwashing liquid. If it’s a high traffic cupboard you may want to line the shelf with some spare wallpaper or tinfoil – this will cut down the cleaning time next time!

Rearrange your (inevitably much smaller) stack of items in the cupboard.

Top Tips

image of a kitchen cupboard with blackboard and pinboard inside doors

If you are short on space, or dislike having magnets on your fridge, try this great idea from Apartment Therapy Los Angeles, for turning the inside of your cupboard doors into a message centre.

When cleaning the cutlery drawers, if you have any silver items that look a bit tarnished then now’s the time to restore them to their best! >>Here’s how to do it using your old tin foil.

Image of cutlery holder made out of felt

If you do happen to have inherited the family silver, then it can be a bit of a task keeping it clean. Best way is to keep it away from air, to help stop it tarnishing. You can make these very simple little hold-alls in no time at all – and it means you can see where each item sits. I inherited these from my Mum – who embroidered them with her own little code TKF = table knives and forks etc. She told me it took her no time at all to run these up on the machine – and the individual compartments stop the cutlery getting scratched.

If you are time poor or a bit low on the domestic goddess gene (i.e if you are me and not my mother) then just roll your “best” cutlery in a napkin, fold the ends under and secure with elastic bands. Do about six of each item at a time Not as pretty but just as effective!