Whether your kitchen is small or large it's important to be able to work efficiently in your cooking space. Keeping your kitchen cabinets neat and tidy is a very important part of keeping your kitchen organized. This is a guide about organizing kitchen cabinets.
Solutions: Organizing Kitchen Cabinets
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I live in a small apartment and have limited storage space. I love to bake and have lots of odd size pans and casserole dishes. I purchased several small plastic crates similar to a milk crate. These fit neatly in one lower cabinet. One holds my baking pans and cutting boards standing on end like books on a shelf and the other holds my odd shaped glass dishes in the same manner. These will not fall over when one is removed because of the limited space between them. I can find them easily and I don't have to climb up to reach a top cabinet.
We have a large lazy susan in our corner cabinet. I have organized it and labeled it before but it is now in disarray, making it impossible to know what we have or ensure that food does not expire. So the other day I decided to tackle the mess and make it a more functional space.
I started by removing everything from the cabinet.
I put everything on our island so that I could sort through it more easily.
I grouped all of the like foods together.
I went through everything to find expired items. Then I sorted the remaining food based on their expiration dates so that the oldest items would be used first.
I wiped off both tiers of the lazy susan.
I decided to use freezer tape to make labels for each of the foods that I planned to store in the cabinet. Many of these items are staples in our house, so labeling where they go also helps with making a grocery list and putting things away.
I made all of my labels, then I started putting everything back into the cabinet.
I tried to put like items near each other, such as all of the kinds of beans, fruits, pastas, etc.
Once everything was back in, I labeled the edge of the lazy susan where each item was.
Now, it is easy to find things we need and I know we will waste less food!
Use old peanut butter lids to set in the cabinet under containers of sticky stuff - like honey or molasses jars - to catch the little drips that always seem to drip down the sides and make a mess. It's much easier to run the lids through the dishwasher every now and then than to have to scrub the sticky mess out of your cupboards!
I formed a useful habit that started when we lived in a house with kitchen drawers that did not slide open easily. When I had to open my utensil drawer to put away the pancake turner, I would look around and see what else needed to be put away in that drawer while I had it open. I still do it, although the drawers in my current house open easily. It seems more efficient than to be opening and shutting drawers for every little thing.
The inside of your cabinets can provide some excellent organizational space. Put some hooks at the back of the cabinet or attach a piece of pegboard or cork board in the back and use this space to hang small kitchen utensils, pot holders, and various other small items. Over-the-door organizers are also great organizational tools for kitchen and bathroom cabinets.
Upon cleaning out my cupboard this last time, I found that placing everything into plastic ziplock bags or container made everything easier to get to and to organize. No more guessing if there is anything in the box or WHAT might be in the box. Plus, this will cut down on pests if you are having problems with them.
Conventional storage in many cupboards in the home leaves a lot of wasted space. To maximise this space I have added 'intermediate' shelving.
For example - my office area is a bench 20' deep along the end of the kitchen. Underneath I have a 12' shelf to hold A4 files and A4 printer paper boxes used to store stationary, receipts, gift wrapping, computer supplies, etc. Because the shelf is set back it doesn't get in the way when you sit at the desk.
When I had new kitchen cupboards built I felt there was a lot of 'head room' wasted so I got the builder to make removable mini shelves which were half the height and half the depth of the top shelf. These were basically just melamine 'n' shaped boxes which could be placed on the top shelf and have items placed on top and underneath which made much more storage space and also everything was much more accessible. Larger/taller items can still go on the bottom shelf.
The builder is making me a pantry at present so I have incorporated this idea into the design - there will be broad deep shelves with intermediate shallow shelves. Even a shelf the depth of a food can on 3 sides of the pantry will allow a much better view of what is in stock and make everything much more accessible - no more foodstuffs going out of date because you didn't know they were there!
This idea can also be incorporated into any closet, garage or storage area in the house, to already existing cupboards, at very little cost.
When things are buried deep in the back of your cupboards and closets they probably never get used. If you don't stack things too deep, making things easy and convenient to get in and out of your cupboards and closets, those items will be used more often.
If you are like me and have limited space and keep plastic containers, I found a great solution. Keeping in mind the Nesting Dolls, I found that with a little planning, I can keep smaller ones inside bigger ones, inside even bigger ones!
This is a spice container (upside down so you can see the lid), inside a peanut butter jar inside a mayo jar. As long as the smaller one goes through the other loose enough to get out easily, then you are good to go!
I do the same thing with plastic containers to save room too. Little Rubbermaid, inside larger Tupperware, inside larger Sterilite, and so on. Hope this helps!
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If you are like me and have limited space and keep plastic containers, I found a great solution. Keeping in mind the Nesting Dolls, I found that with a little planning, I can keep smaller ones inside bigger ones, inside even bigger ones!
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Organizing Kitchen Cabinets