***CONFESSION***
Our kitchen table (and all of our kitchen counters, for that matter) are almost always filled with clutter of some kind. After my 50 Weeks to Organized Project back in 2013, I got really good at keeping certain surfaces clean, like the bathroom counter–a major win–and the tops of “decorative surfaces,” like the piano, bookshelves, etc.
But the surfaces we used every day? The ones where the mail got stashed, the purse got thrown, the food got eaten, the chopping/peeling/dinner prep happened?
Not so much.
I’ve tried it all, folks—handling mail as soon as it comes into the house, hanging up my coat and purse right when getting home (or soon thereafter, anyway), getting rid of almost a third of our possessions, not letting myself pass a counter and go into another room without putting something away…but nothing has kept those puppies cleared off for more than a few days (usually until my next big cooking project).
The fact is, it has never been in my nature to be tidy (see exhibits A, B, and C), but at the beginning of this month, while starting out on Apartment Therapy’s January Cure (a great motivator to start some spring cleaning!), I stumbled across a trick that actually seems to work better than anything else—
Buying fresh flowers for the table.
It’s stupid, really, why this even works, but there’s just something so sad about seeing a beautiful vase of flowers get overshadowed by a bunch of junk, so I actually tend to keep the table free of clutter when I have fresh flowers on it. (It helps that we’re actually eating most of our meals at the table now instead of on the couch while watching t.v., which forces us to regularly make sure the table is clear).
So there you go–a $5-15 investment in grocery store flowers every other week or so is apparently the secret to getting that kitchen clutter under control.
Who knew?
For you neat types out there—what tricks do you use for keeping clutter at bay?
