We didn’t do the maths, really. A two-bedroom house for four people (one due to arrive on the scene on 22 June) is getting a tad cosy. I say we didn’t do our maths right, we probably just didn’t work hard enough in our GCSEs.
But that room to human ratio means we’re having to be nifty with our space. The outside toilet (yes, really; it’s a feature) has become a plastic toy graveyard, while our kitchen has had to become mine and Matt’s escape from the abundance of Lego and other foot-crippling carnage in the living room.
Instead of a kitchen-diner, we’ve gone the kitchen-spa route. It’s unique, sure but really why wouldn’t a cauldron of beef bourguignon match perfectly with a jasmine-infused candle and some tittering panpipes? Cooking pilates has to become a thing at some point. (Apparently goat yoga is sweeping the states at the moment – anything is possible).
With space of the essence and fuelled by this immense stat – the average UK household now contains 34 unused kitchen gadgets, worth £267 per home going to waste, according to research from Deliveroo – we rolled up our sleeves and had an epic clear out.
I have a herb blender that has never met a herb in it’s life; there’s the gargantuan cake tin that’s housing a few solitary almonds with a Best Before Date of 2 January 2015 and our wedding topper embellished with mouldy icing. There’s the weird pan my mum ‘handed down’ (read: deposited at ours) that has something distressing burnt to it’s botty – something even a chef’s knife can’t dislodge. There’s also the portable coffee frother that barely conjures up a millimeter of foam – seven bubbles max. That’s not forgetting the five cheese graters dotted about the place in case of an emergency cheese grating situation. (One wouldn’t want to be in the middle of nuclear war without a stable of those cheese-savaging guys). It must be noted, we have an army of graters and, yet, still no garlic crusher; adulting is really confusing at times.
Oh and while maths isn’t my thing, take a moment to consider there’s 26.7m households in the UK. That’s a whole lotta redundant kitchen stuff – we’re talking 907,800,000 kitchen items – or over £7 billion worth of equipment – taking up space in bulging cupboards across the UK.
So team, whatcha gonna do? Ditch the old wedding present relics, edit down your spatula collection, pop the ice cream maker on the market – because, really, we must support our local ice cream van man. But more than anything, ease this stuff out of your place in true Spring clean style so your kitchen can double up as a Zen-like arena of tranquility and Deliveroo takeaway prawn vindaloo curry. They say home is where the heart is – all we want is a bit of head space and to be able to cheese grate in peace, really.
On yer bike
To encourage a kitchen spring clean Deliveroo has introduced a novel way to give these unloved gadgets and gizmos a new and environmentally-friendly function. Working with Design Works engineer, Sean Miles, they have designed and built a fully-functional bicycle, constructed entirely from the least-used kitchen items in the UK – including biscuit-cutters, whisks and blenders.The Deliveroo up-cycle, now joins the fleet of 12,000 riders that deliver food to across the UK every day.
This blog post was written in partnership with Deliveroo.
