Four Kitchen Tricks For Families 

Today I’m going to share four kitchen tricks that will help keep your kitchen clean enough throughout the day! Keeping the kitchen picked up when everyone is home all the time can be a real challenge. The dishes keep piling up because no one is leaving to go to school or work!  

Are we forced to have a kitchen that is dirty all the time? I sure hope not!!! 

Do we need to spend all day cleaning the kitchen? I don’t have time or energy to do that either!

 I’d like to share with you four tricks that have helped me keep the kitchen clean enough throughout the day, even with my entire family home all day!

1. Dishwasher Clean or Dirty Sign

We have a sign right near our dishwasher which communicates to the rest of the family whether the dishes in the dishwasher are clean or dirty. This is a relatively new addition to our kitchen.  

Our current dishwasher does a great job at cleaning our dishes. But, it takes forever to finish a cycle. And, for some reason, it makes many sets of beeps throughout its cycle. I think it beeps when it begins the drying cycle, and then beeps again when it is almost done, and then gives us one final set of beeps. This dishwasher has a lot to say!

To figure out if the cycle is done, you need to look to see if the red light shining on the floor has turned off. The controls for the dishwasher are on the top of the door handle, so there’s nowhere to look on the door without opening it!

When we moved into our home, I noticed that the family wasn’t ever sure if the dishwasher was clean, running, or dirty. So, everyone just left their dishes out in the sink. I would go to the kitchen to grab a glass of water and there would be a pile of dishes there, right next to the empty dishwasher. 

To say I was frustrated would be an understatement. I have made it clear to my family that they need to out their dishes away in the dishwasher when they are done eating. We are all home, doing work, so we all have a responsibility to contribute to the cleanliness of the home. 

So, I talked to my family about the problem. It turned out that the reason the dishes were left in the sink was that they weren’t sure what the status of the dishwasher was. 

Now, this is a problem I could solve!

I used my Cricut to make a sign and placed it at eye level near the sink. Now, whoever was finishing up their meal or snack could quickly glance at the sign and know where to put their dishes. If the dishwasher was dirty, they would put them in the dishwasher. But, if it was clean or running, they could put their dishes in the sink. 

Having a simple sign has made it easy for my family to keep the kitchen picked up throughout the day!

2. Personalized Water Glasses

How many water glasses does your family go through during the day? Do you ever get confused as to whose glass is whose?  

This has been a problem in our family for years! I would get a glass for water out, then want to save it for later. Only to find out that my glass was now surrounded by other glasses on the kitchen counter, and I had no idea which one was mine!

I kept thinking about this problem, and then I decided to do something fun about it.  

We love going to Disneyland, and for years we had annual passes. This love for Disney has spread into our kitchen over the years. Our cabinet is full of Disney mugs that Dave and I love using for our coffee. I also themed my current kitchen to coordinate with my Disney dishes.

As I continued to think about this water glass problem, I realized I could solve this challenge with personalized glasses!

Disneyland has two glass etching shops where you can buy glasses and then get your name written on it!  

This could solve my problem! I could surprise my boys with new glasses, and solve my water glass problem in the kitchen.

On one of our trips to Disneyland, I had each family member pick out a glass that was a size they liked and then had the glass artist put their names on them.  

Now, we have personalized water glasses that sit out on the counter, available to the family throughout the day. I put them in the dishwasher at night so that we can start the day with clean glasses.

This worked great until two of them got broken during the covid lockdown! Thankfully, we found out that it’s possible to order them online!!!

If you don’t want to use glass because your kids are too little, then you could color code the plastic drinking cups. I used to have red and blue cups for my kids, and Ken would have the red cups because that was his favorite color, and Dan, who liked blue, would use the blue cups.

Another way to solve this problem would be to have personalized coasters for each family member to put their glass on. Or, you could buy a different style of glass for each person to use. 

Having personalized water glasses has really helped reduce the number of dishes we use during the day, and also helps solve the mystery of which water glass in the kitchen belongs to which person.

3. Activity Stations

There are a couple of areas in my kitchen that are designed for activities I do daily. This has helped me be more efficient in my food preparation and kept my kitchen more picked up.

I make coffee two times a day. Before I designed my coffee basket, my preparation looked like this. Clean out the coffee maker, walk to the pantry to get the coffee, load up the coffee maker, then walk back to the pantry to put things away.

Not a difficult thing to do, but was there a way I could make this more efficient?

I needed a coffee station!

I decided to repurpose a basket that I had in my kitchen and put the coffee, the filters, and a little trash container in it. This basket lives right next to my coffee maker. I also have a container for my sugar cubes and one for Splenda. The coffee mugs live right above the coffee maker!

I love my coffee station! Everything I need to make a pot of coffee is right there. I like how the basket keeps the coffee items organized and in one place!

I have another station in the kitchen which I use to prepare the morning oatmeal. My husband and I eat a bowl of oatmeal every morning. We were both going to the pantry, getting out the oatmeal, and then putting it away every morning. Sometimes, the oatmeal bin would get left out on the island, which then made the kitchen look messy.

I decided to try to make the mornings easier by creating an oatmeal station. I bought some pretty white canisters that worked well with my kitchen decor and put oatmeal in one, sugar in another, and then made sure the liquid measure container was right below the station.

Having this little area, which is right near the sink, has made it much more efficient to make our breakfasts in the morning.

Activity stations can help you be more efficient in the kitchen with tasks that you do every day. 

4. Regular Times to Pick up

I am home almost all the time. This means that I could be cleaning my kitchen all day. With the family home and snacking throughout the day, the number of dishes and crumbs that show up in the kitchen would make cleaning the kitchen a never-ending cycle.

Additionally, my kitchen is in view of the entire back of our home. With an open plan family room and kitchen, there is no hiding a dirty kitchen.

My kitchen isn’t clean all the time. In fact, if you were to stay with us for several days, you’d notice that each night, the pots and pans get left on the stove for cleaning in the morning. That is by design.

I have decided that there will be regular times for the kitchen to get picked up throughout the day. 

In the morning, I empty the dishwasher while I’m making my oatmeal. If I don’t finish it then, I will empty it after the dog walk. I try to make sure the dishwasher is empty and ready for the daily dishes before I get my shower done in the morning.

After I’ve worked out and showered, I will typically take care of the handwashing from the night before. I can easily supervise school from the kitchen while I’m doing that.

At lunchtime, I put my dishes away, and then I’ll run the dishwasher if it looks full enough. Because we’re are all home, running the dishwasher two times a day is the norm for us.

Then next time for clean up is usually after dinner. My kids will take care of that chore for me, and then get the dishwasher running for the night.

I don’t clean my kitchen all throughout the day. Sometimes it gets a bit messy in between those regular clean up times. That’s ok. We are not going for perfection here!  

The key to keeping your home clean enough is to design systems that the entire family can follow, and then keep tweaking them for your unique situation. I hope that these kitchen tricks are useful to you as you design a homemaking plan that works for your family.

I would love to hear your ideas! What tricks do you have to share with us?