Remember back when your kitchen was new, and you first moved in? Everything was in its place, and it was easy to find. But over the years, you get a lot of new stuff, it gets put wherever it is convenient at the time, and eventually, you have chaos. But you can get back that well-organized look you had way back when. Here are some tips for organizing your kitchen.
One of the biggest messes for most people is that large cabinet where you store all your pots and pans and their respective lids. First, get a lid rack. This will keep all the covers from taking up space on the bottom of the cabinet. There are small expandable ones that can sit along the side of the cabinet, or if you don’t have space, hanging racks that screw into the cabinet wall to keep them out of the way. There are also standing racks where you can place all the pans, leaving plenty of room to stack the pots inside each other.
You’ve probably accumulated way too many kitchen utensils over the years. You don’t need to buy one of those sets that come with its own canister, but you can emulate that look. Buy open glass, ceramic, or metal canisters, whichever matches your décor, and assemble often used utensils and measuring spoons in them on the counter. This makes them much more accessible, and it will also free up some valuable drawer space.
Next, tackle the drawers. This is where the real mess happens. You probably have a divided tray for your silverware, but no rule says they can only be used for forks and spoons. Buy different size divided inserts for some of your other drawers to organize everything that will fit into one. For smaller objects that get thrown in drawers and get lost, use cheap, disposable food containers to keep things like rubber bands and paper clips together. You will want some open space for large and miscellaneous items, but for the most part, put everything in some sort of container. Finally, designate a single out-of-the-way drawer as the official junk drawer. If it doesn’t belong somewhere else, put it there.
If your kitchen has become disorganized over the years, you don’t need a new kitchen; you just need a bit of organization. Think about what you use and where you use it and find ways to keep the most used things handy and organize everything else in bins and containers.
