With the hint of spring in the air, it's a great time to refresh your home and welcome in the new season. One of the best ways to do that is to refresh your kitchen and pantry. This is especially true if you've been squirreling away snacks and comfort food all winter long. Regardless, Spring is a great time to get back on track with your healthy eating goals and make sure you are all stocked up and organized to eat healthy.

While the project of refreshing your full kitchen can feel overwhelming, I have 6 tips to turn this project into a feeling of accomplishment once you are done.

From expired condiments in the fridge, to the half eaten bag of chips in the pantry, to the 5 travel mugs taking up space in your cupboard- we are going to refresh your kitchen and it will be looking great in no time!

Set aside an afternoon this weekend or you can break this task up over a week or two to make it less overwhelming. For example, on Monday, you can wipe down all of your cabinets. On Tuesday, tackle the refrigerator shelves. Create a schedule that's doable for you so you won't procrastinate.

Keep reading for a simple plan to follow for a full kitchen refresh!

Follow these 6 tips to give your kitchen and pantry a spring makeover:

1. Clear the cupboards and shelves

Clear off some counter space or a table, and start systematically through your kitchen, pulling things out of your cupboards, your pantry, and the fridge itself. You'll probably find serving dishes you forgot all about, doubles or triples of spices and seasonings, and some expired items. Take everything out one cabinet at a time and go through it.

2. Get rid of excess and non-essential items

Do you need 5 travel mugs to take your coffee to go? What about that toaster oven that you never use and it’s taking up counter space? Or dishes that are chipped and you don’t like? Seasonings you've never tried? Foods you bought with good intention but never ate? Any food you find that is expired needs to go.

While these things all may be pretty or had a purpose at one point, you probably don't need all of it.

Decide on your non- essentials and split into these four categories:

Throw them away (expired foods)
Donate them (perfectly good dishes you never use)
Put them in basement or garage for storage (if you feel like you might use one day)
If you have a compost bin for old produce then get that going. (Summer gardening season is just around the corner!)

3. Clean and scrub

Now with some of the clutter gone, it’s time to clean and scrub. Cabinets collect dust and grunge maybe even some crumbs. Give those shelves a good cleaning and be sure they're dry. You can update the look with contact paper to make cleanup easier the next time. In your fridge, remove any shelves or drawers that can come out and wash them with warm soapy water.

It will feel like a whole new home when you do.

4. Get Organized!

Now for the fun part! Now that it's all clean don't just shove everything back the way it was. You'll likely find that you could use a few organizing tools to make sense of your cabinets and pantry. There are so many ways to get creative with the space you have in your kitchen and get it organized in a beautiful and functional way.

Here’s a few ideas:

Make a plan and define your kitchen zones. This way, you'll know where everything goes. For example, make the items you use the most frequently stay in an easily-accessible place. It would help if you organized cookware near your oven, and pantry goods should go into the pantry. Make a plan of what works for you and your kitchen and stick to it.
Invest in storage items. Make life easier by getting clear containers for small items, get larger bins for the pantry, drawer organizers, dividers or over the door compartment racks to help you organize with ease.

Pots and pans take up loads of space, but if you can install a hanging rack, you can display them and keep them out of the way.

If you spend too much time fumbling for spices, mount a spice rack to the inside of your cabinet doors and organize it alphabetically.

5. Food organization and essentials

In the fridge, organize your food so that things that need to be used first are in the front. In your pantry, arrange things by type, like boxes and cans, for example, and then organize them in their respective sections.

Create a master list of grocery essentials. Each week, making a menu of what you're going to make helps eliminate waste. Keeping a master list of the essential things you usually keep on hand (like beans, pasta, rice, etc.) will prevent you from buying more spaghetti when you have five boxes of it or remind you that you're out of spaghetti sauce.

6. Work with the space you've got

Some of you might have a massive kitchen with tons of space. Organizing this will be far easier. But if you're in tight quarters, like I am, you'll have to get a bit more creative. For this reason, make sure that things you don't use daily aren't in the way of what you use more often. Making your space functional will create ease in the kitchen.

Now keep it up! Once the hard work is done, make a plan to do a deep clean and decluttering once per year to keep everything in top shape in your kitchen. If things are still getting messy, do it more often, or be open to changing for another method.

With these kitchen and pantry-perfecting tips, you'll spring into better meals in no time!

Next steps:

Join our Pantry Cleanout Challenge this month inside Nourish for Life Membership: Click here