The Minimalist Kitchen: Declutter Your Kitchen

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Architect and The Not So Big House author Sarah Susanka keeps her North Carolina kitchen clutter-free by minimizing the number of appliances and gadgets she buys. Photo By Seth Tice-Lewis

Sarah Susanka, architect and author of the The Not So Big House books, thinks kitchens are out of control. Oversize appliances and gadgets that do everything we once did by hand now clutter our countertops and eat up storage.
 
This leads her clients to think they need bigger kitchens; more than three-quarters ask to start their home remodel with that room. “The attitude is, the bigger the better—and that’s absolutely not the best kitchen to be cooking in,” Susanka says. “There’s an appropriate scale, and having more and more cabinets and space between countertops can make it feel unusable.”

The first step to a great kitchen isn’t to remodel, but to clear away the space and energy guzzlers that clutter your counters and eat up storage. Underneath all those gadgets, you might already have the kitchen of your dreams.

Kitchen solutions

Some tasks are better done by hand. Try these low-kilowatt options.