If Your Counters Feel Cluttered But Not Messy, Consider This

Have you ever seen a spotless kitchen on television or in a magazine that made you a little envious or a little frustrated with your own kitchen? It seems like some people have perfectly clean and organized homes, while for the rest of us keeping the kitchen decluttered can be a real chore. Over time, that frustrating clutter gets harder and harder to deal with. Maybe the space is just so small that it feels cramped, even though you are doing the best you can. But there are some tricks that you can employ to make a cluttered kitchen feel more cohesive.

One thing that contributes to a cluttered feeling is a lot of visual noise. That just means that there are simply too many contrasting colors and elements scattered about. When your eyes look across the room, they're met with so many different elements that it all feels like a jumble. If you stick to a restrained color palette and limited finishes — all while leaving a little breathing room for everything else — it can help quiet that visual noise.

What you want is uniformity because it's less jarring to the eye. You don't see clutter when everything looks similar. To that end, you can use matching hardware across all your cupboards and drawers. Items stored on the counter can be in containers that match in size, shape, or color. Matching appliances or a uniform color scheme also add to this effect.

Most tips on removing clutter focus on the literal idea of clutter. Simply cutting back on what you have and finding other places to store them, that sort of thing. But that's not always an option. Using balance to create the idea of a more cohesive space is another trick for making a noisy area look less cluttered. For instance, keep items of the same size and shape together. Short and wide things in one space, tall and narrow things in another. The visual contrast draws your eye and makes it look cleaner.

You can also group items together in a tray or possibly an inexpensive dollar store organizer. While that might seem like adding clutter, grouping items in one place creates the illusion of order and simplicity. Multiple items in one tray can look like only one once they're grouped. In terms of color, some recommend the 60-30-10 rule. This rule simply states that you should have 60% of a dominant color for things like cabinets and flooring, 30% of a secondary color for the backsplash or countertops, and 10% of your space devoted to accent colors for hardware, appliances, and other details.

Following this allows enough variation that your kitchen isn't one note, while still providing the visual cohesion that helps crowded spaces blend into the larger picture. Obviously a cluttered kitchen can be approached in several ways. Simply paring down on what you have, removing small appliances, and tossing items you don't need can physically open up a space. But when you've accomplished as much of that as you can and you need to go the extra mile, adding visual cohesion can make all the difference.