10 Kitchen Organization Tips to Cut Clutter and Maximize Space
The kitchen is a place for preparing meals, gathering with loved ones, and sharing food and stories with the people we care about. But unfortunately, the kitchen is also a room that is very prone to accumulating clutter and becoming messy and disorganized with frequent use. An organized kitchen will inspire you to spend more time here, experimenting with delicious recipes and making the most of your appliances and kitchen fixtures.
So, here are 10 kitchen organization tips to try in your own home for a more user-friendly kitchen that maximizes the space you have!
1. Evaluate Your Cabinet Contents
Trying to organize a messy kitchen can be very intimidating, so it’s best to start with a quick assessment of what you have and what you truly use. Pull everything out of your kitchen cabinets, one by one, and take a good, hard look at what’s inside. Consider selling or donating dishware, pans, and utensils that you never use to make more room for the items you use regularly. Then while everything is off the shelves, clean the shelves and other interior surfaces thoroughly before placing items back inside.
2. Utilize Vertical Space
If your kitchen is a little short on storage space, then it’s time to think vertically. Kitchen storage ideas that take a vertical approach include hanging mugs on hooks or wine glassware on a hanging rack. You can also stack reusable water bottles vertically by repurposing a magazine holder or hang a spice rack on your wall.
3. Pick Up Some Drawer Dividers
Another great idea for small kitchen organization is drawer dividers for your silverware and cooking utensils. You can find very affordable versions of these in local houseware stores for an easy kitchen organization update.
4. Embrace the Lazy Susan
Lazy Susans may remind you of your mom’s or grandma’s house, but these kitchen organization tools are very useful in the modern kitchen too. Just spin them around, and you can access what you need much quicker and easier.
5. Hang a Rack for Pots and Pans
Pots and pans take up a lot of space in kitchen cupboards, so consider hanging a rack to store your cookware out in plain sight. If you have colorful or stylish cookware, this is also a great way to add some personality to your kitchen décor.
6. Sort and Store Utensils in Jars
Another one of our kitchen organization tips is to use jars to store similar types of utensils, such as spatulas, peelers, and wooden spoons. For even more organization, label your jars to indicate which ones are for serving, grating, whisking, and used for other common purposes.
7. Add Layers of Storage with Risers
Another way to go vertical with your kitchen storage is to use risers inside of your cupboards to create easily accessible layers. Risers make it easy to access large pans that would otherwise be weighed down by stacks of other items.
8. Label Your Containers
No one likes hunting through a messy pantry, cupboard, freezer, or refrigerator to find a certain spice or ingredient for a recipe. Labeling your containers of spices, flour, sugar, rice, and other dry goods is a great way to stay organized while you’re cooking.
9. Make Use of Wasted Space
There are lots of places around the kitchen that could be considered wasted space, such as the small side walls of your pantry and the sides of cupboards near the ground. To make use of awkward spaces, you can hang hooks or even a shoe organizer to hold items inside of cabinets, for example.
10. Tuck Away Appliances
If cutting clutter if your main goal for organizing your kitchen, then you may want to hide away bulky appliances that take up valuable counter space. This includes the toaster, blender, Instant Pot, juicer, and anything else that you don’t use every day. With the clutter cleared away, you’ll also draw more attention to your beautiful kitchen sink, faucet, and other kitchen accessories.