Kitchen cabinet solutions: get organized for the New Year!
December 12, 2017
If you’re like most of us, your kitchen has more stuff in it than any other room in your house. And all those items need to be stored away, hopefully where they can be easily found and accessed. The sheer number and variety of different items your kitchen cabinets must accommodate can make organizing your kitchen storage space a daunting task. So here are a few tips that can help:
Declutter!
Before you try to do any arranging, first get rid of the stuff you don’t use or need. That food processor you used one time five years ago? Donate it to a worthy cause. All those random and mismatched coffee cups that are taking up valuable space in your cabinets? Throw them away. Be ruthless and set sentimentality aside. If you haven’t touched it for more than two years it’s time to move on.
Organize
Now that you’ve gotten rid of all those items you don’t use, it’s time to organize the rest. Arrange like items with like items in a way that makes sense to how you use your kitchen. Beyond the basics of storing anything that’s edible separate from things that are not, think about which items you use most often and arrange them in a way that makes them easily accessible. If you’ve hung on to that food processor because you might use it one day, store it in the back of a topmost cabinet. Conversely, those spices you use every time you cook should be close to your stove and easily within reach.
Categorize
The best way to maximize your kitchen storage space is to sort items by category, then sub-category. For example, one category might be edible goods. The sub-category of this could be canned goods vs. package goods. Or you might sort by frequently used goods such as cereal vs. stuff you reach for less often like pancake mix or instant potatoes. The specifics are up to you, but the goal is to think “canned green beans” and know exactly which door to open and where to find them.
Prioritize
This means giving frequently used items priority. Those dishes or bowls you use for most every meal should go in the cabinet that’s most easy to get to. Not to pick on that rarely used food processor, but it’s stored up out of reach where it takes a stool and some effort to get to.
Keep it neat
This doesn’t mean going all OCD and arranging your spices in perfect alphabetical order, but it does help to keep labels facing out, bowls stacked in order of size, etc. It may also help to purchase a few kitchen cabinet organizers to help separate items and avoid the jumble.
Keep up with it
Your kitchen is the most used room in your home and literally changes daily as you purchase new food, cook each meal, and clean up when you’re finished. With all that activity it’s easy to let your hard-won organization begin to slip, but remember it’s easier to stay organized if you keep up with it on a daily basis than starting over each week, month or next New Year.