De-clutter your kitchen with some simple steps:

• Go through your fridge, freezer and pantry and throw out any expired food items.
• Recycle any cookbooks or food magazines you haven’t used in the last year.
• Remove any kitchen utensils or gadgets you never use.
• Donate or recycle extra dishes or gadgets you don’t need, like that extra set of salt and pepper shakers you rarely use.
• Consolidate kitchen tools. If you have a citrus juicer and a lemon squeezer, do you really need both? Keep the tool you reach for most often and find a new home for the other.

Streamline your small appliances

Before packing your small appliances, pull them out of your cupboards and divide them into groups according to how often you use them.

Never

If appliances you never use are taking up space in your cabinets, it’s time to find them a new home.

Special occasions

These are the appliances you use only once every couple months, on special occasions or during certain seasons. Your ice cream maker or waffle maker might fall into this category. Start with packing these appliances, and in your new home, store them on an upper shelf.

Daily

Appliances you use every day, like your toaster, coffee maker or Soda Stream, belong on your countertop or in a low, easy-access cabinet. Pack these items last.

Clean out the junk drawer

In the kitchen, junk drawers become a collection spot for take-out menus, spare change and all sorts of items. Dump everything out of the drawer and sort the items into piles. Put pens, paper clips and other usable items back where they belong. Find homes for anything else you still need. If you don’t remember what something is for, recycle it or throw it away.

Make sure everything has a home

Pay attention to what’s cluttering your kitchen counter. Is it landing there because it doesn’t have a designated spot? Find a storage area for each piece of clutter, so it always has a place to go when it’s not being used.

• Have a place in your pantry for shopping bags so they don’t clutter your kitchen counter.
• Leave space in a closet for backpacks, purses, laptop bags and briefcases so they don’t get dropped at the door or on your counter.