DE-CLUTTERING
ROSIE BARRON IS THE TIDY COO Rosie Barron is The Tidy Coo, an award winning Professional Organiser. Scotland’s only Master KonMari Consultant and member of APDO (the Association of Professional Declutterers and Organisers). Rosie lives in Aberdeenshire with her husband, four Home Educated children, eight ponies, five dogs, three cats, four bunnies, chickens, ducks and fish which all Spark Joy.
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f you have been following along with this little series of decluttering, then so far you will have covered your Clothes, Books, Papers, Toiletries and Christmas. This time we are going to look at the Kitchen. Kitchens can be divided into three main categories – Food, Cookware and Tableware. I like to start with food when I’m helping people to declutter their kitchens as it’s often the easiest one to get started on. I hate food waste and so I regularly go through my cupboards to check what is in date and what is getting close to going out of date to make sure that
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Images: Laura Walter Photography
we waste as little as possible. When doing food, further divide it into fridge, freezer and cupboard categories. You don’t need to take all of your food out at the same time, but you do need to make sure that you have pulled out everything in a single category. For example, all of your tins at one time, or all of your pasta. First thing is to go through the food and check for expiry dates. Some expiry dates (Best Before) may be able to be taken with a pinch of salt, but those are generally so long dated that I would say that if something has been in your cupboard long enough to go out of date, then you are simply not going to use it, and you should discard it. Once you have discarded those that are out of date, take a look at the food that is left and decide if you are actually going to use it. Sometimes, especially around Christmas, we are bought food that we simply won’t use, or we buy more than we will ever use. Crackers for example, or dates. If you are not going to use them, then don’t put them back in your cupboard only to throw them out when they go out of date, give them to a food bank or to someone who will use them.
