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Marie kondo refrigerator


Marie Kondo shares the space that she struggles to organize

(Image credit: KonMari Media, Inc.)

Marie Kondo has gained global admiration for her minimalist approach to organization. However, even Ms. Kondo has one space that she struggles to keep in order. The space in question? Her refrigerator.

The tidying guru has reorganized storage ideas worldwide with a host of best-selling books and two Netflix series to her name. Her KonMari method has become one of the most recognized tidying techniques of our time – but even Marie struggles to maintain order in the frequently used part of her kitchen. 

Discussing her kitchen storage ideas exclusively with H&G, Marie Kondo revealed that she struggles to keep her family's refrigerator tidy – but there are ways to stay on top of the space. 

(Image credit: KonMari Media, Inc.)

Marie Kondo's fridge organization tips  

Your fridge is amongst the most-used appliances in your home – so it is unsurprising that even Marie Kondo finds it hard to organize hers. However, she has three simple steps to maximize success. 

1. Ensure everything has a home 

(Image credit: Future / Jan Baldwin)

The idea of a permanent 'home' for every object is a staple of KonMari teaching, and the fridge is no exception. 'To keep the fridge tidy, you have to make a rule and ask your family to put the items back where each item belongs,' Marie explains. 

Similarly, on the subject of her teaching, Marie adds that finding a permanent home for your possessions is 'one of the best ways to hold yourself accountable' as it encourages you to 'get into the habit of putting [your] items back on a daily basis.'

2. Leave space for new items 

(Image credit: Fisher & Paykel)

In an Instagram post , Marie continued to share her refrigerator tips – recommending that you leave additional space for leftovers or new food that you may acquire after cleaning.

'I also recommend storing by category to make it easier to sort items and tell at a glance where things are,' Marie explains. This method is also a pillar of the KonMari teaching – and amongst Marie Kondo's 5 top tips for organizing a small kitchen. 

3. Know how much food you already have  

(Image credit: Orthex Group)

Sharing her kitchen ideas in another post , Marie shared that 'the key to keeping a tidy refrigerator is to always be aware of how much food you have.' 

This means you can quickly see everything at a glance to prevent yourself from buying the same food at the store. It will also minimize food waste as you can observe best-before dates easily.  

Joy at Work | £14.99 at Waterstones

For advice beyond the refrigerator, you can discover more of Marie's teaching in her new book, written in collaboration with Scott Sonenshein. Meanwhile, US readers can find an edition on Amazon or shop for the best deals below.

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Megan is the News and Trends Editor at Homes & Gardens. She first joined Future Plc as a News Writer across their interiors titles, including Livingetc and Real Homes. As the News Editor, she often focuses on emerging microtrends, sleep and wellbeing stories, and celebrity-focused pieces. Before joining Future, Megan worked as a News Explainer at The Telegraph, following her MA in International Journalism at the University of Leeds. During her BA in English Literature and Creative Writing, she gained writing experience in the US while studying in New York. Megan also focused on travel writing during her time living in Paris, where she produced content for a French travel site. She currently lives in London with her antique typewriter and an expansive collection of houseplants. 

How to "Marie Kondo" Your Fridge In A Few Easy Steps

Clean out and declutter your fridge with these Marie Kondo-like tips

By Tyler Lacoma

We’ve already talked about how to Kondo-ize your office to get that clean, minimalistic Mario Kondo feel with the right de-cluttering practices. But there’s another place in the house that holds a lot of clutter and doesn’t get talked about very much: The refrigerator.

Contents

It’s no secret that the average fridge can get really dirty and overcrowded in time. Do you wince a little when you open your fridge? Do you wish it was a little cleaner, brighter, and more pleasant to use? If it’s time to remove fridge clutter and find a better approach to storing food, then we have the tips that you need.

1. Start with a full surface clean

Pull on your spring-cleaning gloves and take everything out of your fridge. It’s time for a full surface cleaning to remove any spills, stains or crumbs that may be in your fridge. This is a great place to start, because it also allows you to inventory what you have in the refrigerator and throw away anything you absolutely don’t need.

With all the food removed, scrub and wipe down all the surfaces inside your fridge until it is spotless. An eco-friendly cleaner can make this job easier, especially if there are tough stains you have to remove. Once everything is cleaned, you can start reorganizing the items that you’ve chosen to keep.

2. Create a “throw away” day at least once a week

Refrigerators get cluttered because we keep foods and leftovers with a vague idea that we’ll use them in the future…and then we largely forget about them. The best way to avoid this problem is to choose one day a week (Saturday, for example) to throw away all unnecessary things in the fridge. If you have leftovers, either use them that day or toss them. If foods are spoiling or going stale, this is the day you get rid of them. If you have nearly empty bottles, either use them that day or chuck them. If you’re keeping foods or ingredients you rarely use, then toss them: Chances are good they will go bad (or are already bad) before you use them again, and you can always buy new versions for your next special cooking project.

Make this a weekly habit, and it will become very difficult to clutter your refrigerator again. Plus, you’ll always have a much better idea of what’s in your fridge and what you may need to purchase. Heck, it could even help your dating life.

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3. Avoid reusing containers in your fridge

This may be a difficult step, depending on your refrigerator habits, but you need to get rid of all reused containers (think old sour cream containers, for example) in your refrigerator, and stop using them entirely. First, using all different types of containers (which are often not labeled) is poor fridge organization and leads to a lot unnecessary mess. Second, it’s not a very sanitary solution for storing leftovers. These things do not bring happiness to your fridge searching. Instead, buy a set of great glass or plastic leftover containers that match and are easy to label if necessary. You can stick these in the dishwasher and use them again and again. It’s a great way to keep your fridge clean and avoid unnecessary clutter.

4. Throw away all open containers

Having trouble deciding what to keep and what to throw away? Make a hard rule to always throw away open containers. If it doesn’t have a lid or a cap or a latched covering it, then use it or toss it. This will keep you from storing open cans and other things in your refrigerator. A container without a lid can get contaminated and will also make your refrigerator smell — they are better off in the trash.

5. Move all messy foods to the bottom of the fridge

If you have foods that may leak, spill or ooze—raw meat, for example, is a frequent culprit — then try to put them as close to the bottom of the fridge as possible. That way, if anything happens, they won’t leak over other refrigerator items, and they’ll be easier to clean up quickly.

6. Create organization rules for your refrigerator levels

How will you re-organize things in your fridge? The crisper drawers, typically found at the bottom of the fridge, are ideal places for fruits and veggies—but you should never mix the two in the same drawer, which can hasten decay. But that still leaves you with a lot of space.

You have two primary organization options. Option one is organizing by type, so that you put all the leftovers together, all the condiments together, all the cheeses together, and so on. It’s a practical option for many fridges that helps you organize and declutter at the same time.

Option two is organizing by use. In other words, if you make a sandwich every day, then you would put all the sandwich ingredients on one shelf for easy access. If you make breakfast smoothies, you would collect all the smoothie ingredients together in one place. This option is more dependent on your personal cooking habits, but can be very effective in the right situations.

Whirlpool Pantry-Inspired French Door Refrigerator

7. Throw away old freezer food, and start using your freezer

Take a break from cleaning your fridge, then take a look at your freezer. If it’s a big mess, we suggest thawing it out and giving it a full cleaning. In most cases though, you can just throw away all old and unused items in your freezer, Since freezers can become hideaways for foods long since forgotten, this might take some extra trash space.

Try to at least clear out a full shelf or two in your freezer. This helps you get into the habit of transferring foods from your fridge to your freezer for longer storage. Meats, herbs, and other ingredients can last much longer when frozen. Just remember to keep cycling out old foods and moving in new foods well before they spoil.

8. Check your temperature settings

Help your food stay fresh longer by taking a minute to make sure your temperature settings are appropriate. A refrigerator should stay around 37 degrees Fahrenheit. If you have different temperature zones, you can adjust them to keep your most sensitive foods a bit colder, and less sensitive foods a little warmer, but try not to stray too far away from 37 degrees. Note that refrigerator doors tend to be a bit warmer than the inside shelves by default.

9. Use your refrigerator’s unique storage options

If you take a look at our list of the best refrigerators, you’ll notice many of them have unique or expandable storage options. If your fridge has a feature like this, use them! Dedicated shelves for larger bottles, pizzas, or smaller items are usually the best use of space you can find, and make locating these items very easy.

10. Don’t forget the front of the refrigerator

Since the inside of your refrigerator is getting a new look, don’t forget to clean and de-clutter the outside of your refrigerator too. We suggest removing any notes, calendars or other information from your fridge, and use a separate notice board or note-taking app for these things. When it comes to kids’ drawings that you absolutely have to put on the fridge, make a rule of only one drawing at a time, and switch out with a new version whenever you need to.

11. If you haven’t used it in the last several months, throw it away

If something has been in your refrigerator for several months, it’s almost certain to have gone bad and should be thrown away (unopened bottles are a rare exception). If items in your freezer have been there for several months, then there’s a good chance that they’ve gone bad too—but more importantly, it’s also a sign that you aren’t really using that food anyway.

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Kitchen cleaning with Marie Kondo

Kitchen cleaning is a headache for every housewife. After all, you need to sort out the products, and wash the countertop, stove and other surfaces, clean the cabinets and the refrigerator. In other words, all day work. But it turns out that cleaning the kitchen of can be a pleasant experience that takes a maximum of an hour.

Meet Marie Kondo is a charming Japanese woman who, by the age of 30, managed to enter the 100 most influential people in the world according to Time magazine. Her books on organizing home life have been translated into different languages ​​of the world and have sold over 8 million copies in total. From January 2019th Netflix launched the reality show Cleaning the Condo, which beat even the most popular cooking programs in the ratings. This woman has a gift for clearing rubble!

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Post by Marie Kondo (@mariekondo)

According to Marie Kondo's cleaning principles , there is only room for things that bring joy in the house. Everything else needs to be said goodbye and quickly. After all, cluttered space scatters attention, distracts from what is really important in life. As soon as a person gets rid of the superfluous, he has the strength and inspiration to solve tasks that have long been hanging in the air. Marie Kondo literally turned a lot of apartments and houses upside down! Telling how to declutter the kitchen using the Konmari method and find the desired harmony.

Strategy

When the amount of things makes you feel stuffy, tell yourself “Stop!”, look around and make a decision to change your life right now. Create cleaning plan , divide the space into zones and put things in order in each one in turn. From the refrigerator to the lower cereal cabinets, then move on to the shelves with dishes and so on. Set aside 20 minutes a day for each zone. Put a tick next to the completed list items - this way you will feel even more joy from the work done.

Joy

Remember the main principle: we leave only what brings joy. A dusting electric waffle iron, a tureen that has never been in demand, a set of cute impractical bowls - to go! You don't have to throw everything away. Organize something like a garage sale. Surely among your neighbors there are those who will be pleased with these things.

© Depositphotos

Practicality

Are you sure you need 4 almost identical whisks, 2 vegetable peelers, 3 corkscrews of different sizes? Get rid of duplicates at least so that they do not take up space. We are sure you will find someone to give extra.

Benefit

Unusual zest scrapers, a container for fish scales, herb scissors, a curly banana knife... When you see these things on the Web, it's hard to resist buying. In fact, they are useless, but they take up a lot of space in the box. Say goodbye to them in any convenient way.

Health

Throw out all the delay from the refrigerator - there are no options. Forgotten sauces, cheese, greens are usually stale. Do not buy food for the future: save - one, you can eat more varied - two, do not give a chance to multiply bacteria and mold in the refrigerator - three. Transfer cooked food to neat containers, and do not send it to the refrigerator immediately in a saucepan.

© Depositphotos

Neighborhood

Good neighborly relations are wonderful only if the neighbors are not moths and bugs. Review grains, spices, pasta, and throw away packages with uninvited guests. In the future, store bulk products in tightly closed glass jars.

Control

A bag of bags is available in every kitchen. Well, do not eradicate this phenomenon, and that's it! We suggest sorting out and reducing its contents, and then moving it to an ergonomic container. Fold the packages vertically in a row with envelopes, like documents in a folder.

Memory

Grandma's tea set can evoke tender feelings, but what about the fact that half of the cups and saucers are missing from it for a long time, and the other half is chipped? We encourage you to be creative. You have no idea what you can do with old crockery!

Rationality

Use all available kitchen space. For example, the niche under the sink most often serves as a hiding place for the trash can. While its proper organization will save a lot of space. Use the full height of kitchen cabinets. There are many hanging organizers for attaching to shelves. Use drawer liners.

© Depositphotos

System

We want the necessary items to be picked up, but we get an accumulation of dust, grease, dirt. As a result, you have to wash not only the countertop, but also all these archived jars and coasters. Hide everything you can in lockers, save your time!

Appliances

A modern housewife can have a huge variety of kitchen appliances: food processors, juicers, coffee makers, grills, toasters, waffle makers, sandwich makers. Sort them out, get rid of the broken ones. Then look again at the remaining fixtures. If there are some that you use once a year, it might make sense to sell them. Put the necessary devices in lockers, starting from the frequency of their use. Those that you need often, let them be at hand. And those that you use once a month, put away.

Detergents

Cleaning and detergents, sponges, cloths and scrapers should be removed from the sink. Clear all horizontal surfaces as much as possible. In addition, your kitchen will look much more aesthetically pleasing without colorful detergents, and cleaning in the kitchen will become more pleasant.

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