5 Genius Tips to Organize Your Kitchen Now!

Organize your kitchen because it is one of your home’s most functional rooms, and it should be a comfortable meeting place where your kids tell you their latest jokes and try to sneak some cookie dough while you’re not looking. But if your kitchen is cluttered and disorganized, it will end up being more frustrating than a sanctuary.

Use these 5 tips to organize your kitchen, get it into shape, and be ready to make some culinary magic!

Tip 1: Hang it up

Your kitchen cabinets have limited space and can quickly become cluttered, making it difficult to put your hands on the spice or utensil you need when you’re in the middle of making dinner happen. A hanging rack for pots and pans is one well-known way to clear out some cabinet space; here are some clever ideas you may not have heard about.

Use those removable plastic hooks with adhesive to hang all sorts of lighter things in less conspicuous places. For example, hang each in the desired location:

• Your apron on the inside of the kitchen door for easy access.
• Small gadgets such as sifters and egg separators on the inside walls of your cabinets.
• Measuring spoons right above your spice rack for convenience and to free up drawer space.
• Your reusable shopping bags on the inside of the door so you can grab them on the way out.

Magnets also come in handy for hanging things up and freeing up space. For example:

• Tape or glue magnets on the insides of your aluminum foil and plastic wrap boxes so you can hang them on the side of the refrigerator and free up cabinet or drawer space. Foil and plastic wrap boxes have little flaps on the ends that you can push in, and they will hold the rolls in place so they won’t fall out of the boxes when you hang them up.
• Buy those round metal spice containers, glue magnets on the bottoms, and hang them on the side of your refrigerator. Not only will this free up a lot of space in your cabinets or drawers, if your refrigerator is next to your stove, your spices will be within a handy arm’s reach when you need them.

Tip 2: Sort it out

Some areas of your kitchen run the risk of becoming catch-all zones, where everything sort of jumbles together and you can’t find anything. This is especially true when you’re dealing with small items such as twist-ties and other odds and ends.

Here are some smart ways that readers at TheKitchn.com have come up with to solve this problem and conquer the clutter.

• Buy small, inexpensive plastic storage containers to use in your “junk drawer.” Now you can put rubber bands in one container, twist-ties in another, clothespins in another, snap the lids on, and voilà! No more jumble. Pick containers with see-through lids for even handier access, because you can see the contents at a glance.
• Buy a basic flatware organizer to corral all of those assorted long, skinny items that always get in the way, such as chopsticks and skewers.
• You don’t need to spend big bucks to stow your cutting board: one reader decided against those $50 cutting board holders and bought a simple $5 magazine rack instead, and then attached it to the inside of her cabinet with some 3M hooks. Quick, easy and inexpensive!

Tip 3: Use Smart Storage

Of course, you will still store lots of things in your cabinets and drawers. When you do, here are some smart ways to organize your kitchen cabinets and drawers.

• Silicone baking sheets are handy to use, but a pain to store. One easy solution is to roll them up and store them inside of used cardboard tubes from the inside of plastic wrap or aluminum foil rolls. It’s free, too! Just be sure to label them so no one accidentally throws them away.
• Keep plastic containers and their lids in the same cabinet or drawer, so you can always put them together easily when you need them. You can use drawer separators to section off separate areas for lids and containers to keep things organized.
• Use lid racks to store the lids to your pots and pans, so you won’t find yourself digging around looking for the right lid for your medium saucepan while your barbecue sauce bubbles over.

Tip 4: Map out your Work Zone

Your kitchen is all about function, so there’s work to be done here. RealSimple.com recommends mapping out your cooking zone, which will be the main area where you do your mixing, chopping, etc. If you bake, map out that zone, too.

Think about what tasks you do the most, and where you do them. Once you’ve mapped out your zones:

• Arrange your pots and pans within easy reaching distance from the stove.
• Arrange the utensils that you use the most within easy reach of the area where you use them. For utensils such as spatulas, mixing spoons and the like, a lazy Susan-style utensil caddy near the stove is a very handy choice.
• Place small appliances such as food processors and stand mixers near the areas where you will need them.

These are a few steps now that will save you thousands of steps over the course of the coming months as you put your kitchen to use.

Tip 5: Use Convenient Placement

This is building on the idea above. You want to make sure that you have everything you will need in your kitchen, right where you will need it. For example a way to organize your kitchen is:

• No matter how skilled you are, you will need a BandAid in the kitchen at some point. Keep a few in a plastic container near where you do most of your chopping and dicing.
• Print out the recipes you use the most, and either tape them on the inside of your cabinet door or hang them on the side of your fridge with a magnet for easy access.
• Store the items you use the most in the lowest cabinets up front, and the things you use the least up in the harder-to-reach spots.
• Group things together by use: bakeware in one area, etc.

What’s your favorite way to organize your kitchen? Leave it in the comments below!

Photos courtesy of Emily May, Josep Ma. Rosell, m01229, Timothy Vollmer, McKay Savage, and Didriks.