Kitchen Organizing Essentials

August 17, 2024

When you think about organizing your kitchen, it can be a daunting task. The kitchen is often the hub of a home. Not only does it usually have dishes, kitchen gadgets, pots and pans, and food, but you might also have school projects, work assignments, books, mail, décor, art projects, science experiments (either intentional or non-intentional), laundry, and who knows what else! In this post, I’ll break down how to think about organizing a kitchen. I’ll also give you the steps on how to do it, and recommend some of my favorite kitchen organizing tools as well.

I’m going to break this topic into four distinct categories: kitchen supplies (appliances and cookware etc…), food that doesn’t need to be refrigerated, food in the fridge, and then “other” (the other stuff that may or may not actually belong in the kitchen. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll post about these other categories. For this post, I’m going to focus on the kitchen supplies.

Where to Start: Make Some Space

When you’re deciding where to start, if you want to organize your kitchen supplies, you may need to clear other things out of the way so that you can zero your focus in on exactly what you’re wanting to organize. When organizing, it’s true that so many different categories rely on each other, so you might encounter some road blocks. If your space is really full, you may need to allocate other spaces in the house to move things so that you have space to rearrange your belongings.

Take Lots of Photos

But before you do anything, make sure to take lots of photos. This will give you something to reference if you do need to refresh your memory about everything you need to fit back in the kitchen. It will also give you some nice “before” shots, which will be great for helping you recognize your accomplishments. Don’t underestimate this important step!

Look For Low-Hanging Fruit

Take a look at all your kitchen supplies, and look for anything you know you don’t need or want. Create an area for donations, and start gathering up everything you can easily part with. Making this space will help give you more space to move around. You might not get everything on this first pass, but it will make it easier to start sorting what you have.

Start Sorting

Group like-items together. Generally, this means to put all the cooking utensils together, mixing bowls together, appliances together etc. You’ll have to define what “like-items” means to you, because you might have particular reasons for grouping certain items. The point of this step is to 1) physically move things together that belong together, 2) help you see how much of each category you have, and 3) agitating your belongings will help reacquaint your memory about what’s still important to you. Of course, you may not keep everything together depending on the frequency of use or size, but this is a good place to start.

Let Go of What You Don’t Need or Want

Now is the time to make some hard decisions of what’s really important to you. Don’t keep things that you’re hanging on to out of obligation, that you never need, that are redundant, or that don’t work for you. And don’t just keep things because you spent lots of money on them. Let go of things that are broken unless you are absolutely sure that you have the skills, time, energy, and resources to actually get it fixed. If you do, complete this task within a week (if you can).

Here are a few more things to ask yourself:

-Are these things you use often (if at all)?

-Are these in good working order?

-Do you have another tool that would do the job better?

-Do you really need this?

-Do you have too many of anything?

-Do you have any duplicates that can go?

-Do you realistically have the availability of storage space to keep everything?

-Does your lifestyle, diet, and entertaining habits support needing everything you have?

Decide Where Things Go

When you’re thinking about organizing your kitchen, I recommend thinking about:

-The proximity to the dishwasher (don’t store things you use often far away)

-The volume of space (height, width, and depth) your items take up

-What items you want to have near the stove

-What items you want to have near your food prep area

-What items need to get stored close by for ease of use

-What items can get stored farther away because they don’t get used often

Here are some other tips:

Appliances

When storing appliances, decide if you want to store them on the counters, where they take up valuable counter space but are more convenient to access, or if they should get stored somewhere else. You may want to consider creating appropriately sized shelving that’s just for appliances. Or you might want to group small appliances and/or accessories together in containers.

Cooking Utensils & Gadgets

These tend to accumulate in drawers and in containers designed to hold large utensils. Really survey everything you have, and be very deliberate about what really needs to stay. These can be organized into drawers, containers, or can be hung from a wall mounted hanging device.

Plates and Bowls

Since plates and bowls gets used so often, they deserve a prime location. One common problem I see with dinnerware is people have too many different types of plates and bowls, and so they don’t stack nicely. If you’re willing, try to streamline your collection so you can utilize the space most efficiently.

Drinkware

Like dinnerware, drinkware also needs easy access. I used to work as a glassblower, so I used to have a huge variety of fun glasses to pick from. I’ve since simplified the glassware I use so that it takes up less space. As for mugs, these can be hard for some people to part with. Pick your favorites. If you can’t fit them all comfortably, you could use hooks or shelf risers to maximize the vertical space.

Water bottles might need to get stored elsewhere. Depending on where you pick, you might want to use an organizer specifically designed to easily stack water bottles on their sides.

Flatware

Flatware might even get used more than plates, bowls, or drinkware! Give these heavy use items a prime spot. Use a drawer organizer to keep things neat.

Cookware

Take a really good inventory of what you have, and which lids go to which pots or pans. Make sure the items you use have good accessibility. Store items that are rarely used towards the back. You can use an organizer specifically for organizing pans and lids.

Knives and Cutting Boards

It’s nice to keep these pretty centralized, near where you’ll reach for them. They make all kinds of different knife holders (magnetic, so they can hang on the wall, drawer organizers, or knife blocks), so don’t feel like you need to use the knife block your knives came in (unless it’s really working well for you).

Bakeware

Cookie sheets can get stored on their sides rather than stacking them so they’re easier to take out and put back. You can use an organizer specifically designed for storing pans vertically.

Serveware

These items tend to be big and bulky, and not used regularly. Depending on the frequency of use and the size of your kitchen, you may want to store these in more of a “storage” area, rather than in the high value real-estate of the kitchen.

Napkins/Rags/Kitchen Towels

You probably aren’t going to want to store all your rags in the kitchen, but make sure you have some handy so you can clean up spills quickly.

Hot Pads/Trivets

Keep these in a spot where they’re easy to access if you’ve got to take a hot pan out of the oven or off the stove. They could go in a drawer or on hooks on the wall. I’ve even stored hot pads on magnetic hooks that were attached to the side of the fridge.

Table Linens: Tablecloths and Placemats

Be sure you’re just keeping ones that actually fit the table you have. Depending on how frequently these get used, you may want to store them somewhere else (like the dining room or a linen closet).

Décor: Vases and Candles

I’m lumping these into the kitchen supplies, but they don’t have to get stored in the kitchen if you have a better spot for them.

Plastic/Glass Storage Containers

These are probably my favorite thing to use in the kitchen, because I love leftovers! I also love using them to bring food with me to eat on the go. For me, this is an important category in the kitchen. Make sure you have all the matching lids and containers. Store similar sized containers together. Store similar sized lids together. Position the lids in all the same direction so they nest and take up less space. Use containers or an expandable lid organizer to keep your lids organized.

Plastic Wrap/Aluminum Foil/Plastic Baggies etc.

They make organizers that are specifically for organizing these types of things. Sometimes it’s worth using them, such as if you need to stack rolls of wrap in a cabinet. You might also want to consider stashing the rolls vertically using a wire rack that mounts to the wall. You can find containers that are specifically designed for containing different sizes of baggies. Pro tip- Near where you store these things, have a Sharpie and blue tape so you can easily label your leftovers. I also recommend having rubber bands, twist ties, and some “chip clips” nearby.

Under the Kitchen Sink

This probably isn’t the right place to store all your cleaning supplies, but have the basics you need in the kitchen such as countertop cleaner, dishwasher detergent, dish soap, trash bags, and whatever else you like to have under there. You can use a shelving system that’s designed to go under the sink and fit around the plumbing or pull-out shelves.

The Junk Drawer

Haha- you probably never thought a Professional Organizer would actually “recommend” having a junk drawer! Once you’ve sorted through all the junk and weeded out what can go, be very deliberate about what gets stored in this drawer (and remember to put it back where you got it). This drawer is not just a default “don’t know where to put it” drawer. Important things I recommend storing there: a box cutter, scissors, some Sharpies, a few pens, a pad of Post-It notes, my beloved blue tape, a lighter, and whatever else you consciously decide needs to go in there. Now you can call it your “Utility Drawer”.

How to Maximize Your Space

First of all, before you buy any random organizing gadgets, measure your space to make sure they will work for you. Don’t buy anything until you’ve effectively sorted, decluttered, and decided where things are going to go. If you’re noticing a lot of empty space that could be better utilized, there’s probably a way to do it!

-Additional Cabinet Shelves: You may realize that you really just need to add another shelf to your cabinet. Because these usually need to be customized to fit your cabinet, they can be something that gets procrastinated on. Measure what you need. Go to your local hardware store to see if you can get something cut if you don’t have the tools to do it on your own. Make sure to get the correct sized shelf pins while you’re at it.

-Additional Wall Shelves: These come in a variety of shapes and sizes.

-Shelf Risers: Sometimes you don’t need a full shelf, but you just need a part of a shelf. That’s where shelf risers come in! They will allow you to maximize the vertical space on a portion of a shelf.

-Pull-out Shelving: You know if you have deep cabinets, it’s really hard to access what’s in the back? Pull-out shelves make it easy! They essentially turn your shelves into drawers. You can get a custom option or look for something premade in the size you need.

-Drawer Organizers: These are either containers or inserts that fit into drawers to divide up the space

-Turntables: These aren’t going to maximize your space (in fact, you may lose some space), but you’ll make up for it in convenience! They’re especially great to use in corner cabinets.

-Containers: If you need to group similar small items together, use containers to help you keep them together.

-Specialty Organizers: Water bottle organizers, lid organizers, plastic baggie organizers, etc. These are usually best to wait on until you’re really ready to dial things in.

Once you’ve sorted, decluttered, organized, and dialed things in, now it’s time to maintain the space! Since you’ve made homes for everything, it should be fairly easy to put things back where they belong. If you find yourself forgetting where things go, use labels to help you remember. You got this!