Kitchen

3. Know the two ways to sort. There are certainly other ways to sort your belongings, but these two ways are simple and effective.Like with like. A family member of mine sorts her kitchen tools into two drawers: “scoopy-stirry” (spoons, ladles etc.) and “cutty-pokey” (knives, vegetable peelers etc.). Sounds a little silly, but it works, and once you know where these drawers are, you can quite easily find what you need, even if you are not familiar with her kitchen. Other like-with-like categories might include tools, paper goods, and electronics and power cords.Complete a task. The second way of sorting is to corral everything you need to complete a task from start to finish. In one drawer in my home, for instance, I have envelopes, stamps, pens and an address book. You might want a drawer near the front door to keep your keys, wallet, mobile, sunglasses and other personal items.

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Mistake 3: Stacking itemsIf you try to pile numerous items on top of each other, you might find it tricky to remove things without the stack toppling over. The solution: Store as much as possible vertically. Just as it’s far better to store books side by side on a bookshelf than in a pile, this rule can be applied to many things around the home. Baking trays and chopping boards in the kitchen are much easier to retrieve and return if they’re stored this way. It can also be a cunning way to make the most of a narrow recess in the kitchen, or try slotting a divider into a standard cupboard, as these homeowners have done.Similarly, don’t stack T-shirts and other clothes – store them vertically, running front to back, within a drawer, so when you’re looking for an item, you can see all the ‘spines’ of the folded garments and make your selection without disturbing the others.

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On the kitchen side, there are two sets of 1000mm-wide drawers with bespoke inserts at the top, designed around the owners’ existing utensils. In the middle, there’s a 600mm-wide bin/recycling pull-out.Plants hang either side of the utility room door. “The vertical felt wall planters soften the space and add an organic, natural element to the geometry and minimalism of the kitchen cabinetry,” Cassam Chenai says. Felt planters, Woolly Pocket.

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