When we moved into this house, the kitchen was the drop zone for most of our boxes. We moved right after getting married, bringing along all our own belongings plus all the boxes from our registry. To say it was a disaster would be an understatement.

I made kitchen organization my top priority- unpacking and categorizing everything. I tried to find the best place to store things and ran into lots of issues- cabinets that were too shallow or too small, drawers that were not tall enough… and I spent lots of time trying to find the best place for things. When things were finally put away I felt like we could actually live here.

After living here for a few months, I took literally everything out of the cabinets and drawers and completely rearranged. You have to know how you use a space to organize it properly. I’m pretty happy with how we have things organized now- but kitchen organization is an ongoing project!

I’ve divided this post into countertops, upper cabinets, lower cabinets, and drawers. That way it’s easy to follow. Hey, I can’t help but want to be organized everywhere!

countertops

When we moved into our new house with our amazing kitchen, I knew one thing: I wanted to keep the countertops clear.

Well, I haven’t quite done that, but I’ve done the best I can! And it’s definitely an improvement on our previous kitchen. I wanted to keep only the basics out, which are things that we use regularly or things that don’t fit anywhere else.

So I settled on a few things: Our toaster oven, some basic utensils, paper towels, and our kitchenaid mixer. As we lived here I’ve also added a fruit bowl, salt, pepper, olive oil, vinegar, honey, and a decorative plate.

Oh, and if you’ve noticed how shiny and amazing our counters are, you can give all credit to my homemade granite cleaner!

It was important to me that small things didn’t look like they were left out accidentally. I wanted them to look purposeful. So I used this awesome acacia two tier tray to store salt, pepper, honey, and a few other things. Our olive oil and vinegar are in decorative bottles next to the stove.

I kept out only our nice looking utensils in a neutral color scheme. The rest are in a drawer. This is definitely a huge improvement for us- it keeps the space looking less cluttered while still leaving important tools within reach.

We also keep our paper towels away from the sink to make them less convenient. This means we don’t use them nearly as often, opting for sponges and microfiber cloths instead. We waste so much less paper this way! We honestly don’t even go through one roll a month.

So that’s about it for countertops! We made sure everything looked purposeful while keeping it uncluttered- which is so important for kitchen organization.

upper cabinets

Cabinets can be tricky. I love the layout of ours, but I’m the first to admit that they could be much more efficient. What we’ve got going for now works for us, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we change it in the future.

Upper cabinets are one of the easiest places to store things, so it makes sense to keep your everyday use things in there. Plates, bowls, everyday drink ware, and mugs all make sense.

Where we’ve been a little less logical is to keep much of our extra dinnerware and glassware in these cabinets as well. We registered for lots of extras because of Lars’s big family (between his siblings, step siblings, and their spouses we’ve got 20 people! All in his immediate family!) This works for now but I can see myself moving our extra stuff somewhere less convenient if we need to make use of this space in the future.

I’m a huge fan of cabinet organizers– they’re super important for our kitchen organization! We got most of ours at an estate sale for $1! You really can’t beat that. I’ve made use of them to try to keep stacking to a minimum. The less stacking the less weight each piece has to bear, meaning they will last longer.

I put our dinnerware to the left of the stove because they are directly across from the dishwasher. When emptying the dishwasher, dinnerware is the bulk of it. So I put them where it was most convenient.

We’ve got a lot of height in our cabinets, which you can’t necessarily see from the pictures. I’m 5’8″ and I can just barely reach the third shelf in these cabinets. Top shelf is step stool territory. So logically the things we use every day are kept lower.

For our drinkware, we keep our drinking glasses and commemorative mugs on the lowest shelf. The mugs that came with our dinnerware are on the second shelf. The top two shelves are for less frequently used glassware- champagne glasses, wine glasses, beer glasses, martini glasses, cocktail glasses… why does each beverage need it’s own glass?! Luckily we have the space for them!

This cabinet is one of my favorites. It stores all our pitchers and long trays and cutting boards. I used a maple rack to keep the trays in place. It just makes me happy to look in this cabinet and see everything easily accessible.

Finding a place for our bakeware was a little trickier. The only cabinet that was deep, wide, and tall enough was the one above the pantry. We had previously stored kitchen appliances here, but I found a better spot for them.

Once the appliances were moved out and the bakeware was added, I felt like I had finally found the right place for things! We used a wire organizer to keep baking trays separate, and kept our cute nesting casserole trays in front.

lower cabinets

These are definitely my favorite! We’ve worked really hard to make our lower cabinets work for us. Kitchen organization is tricky, so it takes trial and error. We don’t have very many lower cabinets, but the ones we do have are put to good use!

This cabinet came with pull out drawers, which I absolutely love. We keep our cookware in this cabinet, which is to the left of the oven. We ended up moving the top drawers higher so that we could keep some taller cookware on bottom.

You know I love cabinet organizers- I’ve made use of this awesome one to store our pans. They fit perfectly in the cabinet drawer.

You can see that I keep our pots and saucepans in the other section of the cabinet. Finding lid storage is always a challenge. I’ve used one of the door mounted lid racks before, but the lids fell off if you slammed the door too hard. So we kept ours in the upper drawer of this cabinet. It works so well for us!

This narrow cabinet baffled me for a while. It is such an awkward size- there isn’t much you can logically fit in there! I stored some of our bakeware in there for a while, but it was still too narrow. When rearranging I realized it was the perfect size to fit small appliances!

So this awkward narrow cabinet became our small appliance storage. We keep our waffle maker, fondue pot, immersion blender, and mandolin slicer in there. It’s one of my favorite organization ideas to date.

And if you have trouble with the cabinet under your kitchen sink- that’s a topic in and of itself! Which is why I already wrote an entire post about it. Just click here to read it! 

drawers

Drawers can be tricky- it’s easy to just toss everything in there and forget about it. Which is why drawer organizers are so important!

We have an awesome huge drawer to the right of the stove- so that’s where we keep the rest of our utensils. We also keep knives, baggies, tin foil, and wax paper there. I’ve made use of some drawer dividers so far, but I plan to build our own custom drawer dividers sometime in the future- so be looking out for that project!

Tupperware has always stumped me. I just never found a good way to store it! My current system is working for us, and I think I’ve solved the issue. I’ve made use of 2 deep drawer dividers to keep our tupperware sorted.

I keep the large tupperware (and our awesome reusable bowl cover) in the left section. Normal size tupperware goes in the middle, and lids on the right. It makes it easy to find everything and put it away. Let’s hope it works long term!

Now for my favorite drawer- the spice drawer! These spice drawer liner inserts were the perfect size to fit our drawer. I just laid them down, and then added all our spices. Now they are always in reach and easy to find. Maybe one day I’ll put them all in color-coded matching containers and be in organization heaven, but I’m not there yet!

So there you have it- that’s how I keep our kitchen organized!

There’s no secret to kitchen organization- you just have to find what works for you. Making things easy to find and put away is key- and be open minded! If it makes most sense for you to store dinnerware in a drawer- do it! Work with what you have.

Good luck organizing- let me know how it goes for you!

things that keep our kitchen organized

The post Kitchen Organization: Cabinets, Countertops, and Drawers appeared first on Pins and Procrastination.

When Lars and I first found this apartment, I was in love with our awesome galley kitchen. I’ve always wanted white kitchen cabinets. The problem was, it just didn’t have that much storage space. The cabinets are rather narrow and there aren’t very many of them. And we don’t have a pantry.

Well, I immediately went to work on pinterest finding organization solutions. And by the time we moved in, I knew where I was going to put all our kitchen supplies.

First things first: I wanted to make the most of the cabinet space we have. Before planning for any additional storage furniture in the kitchen, I decided what to put in each cabinet.

Dinnerware

The first and most obvious cabinet I wanted to focus on was the dinnerware cabinet. We have settings for 8 people plus 4 extra pasta bowls, a few extra glasses, and some novelty mugs. I had my eye on a set of wire cabinet organizers on amazon, but luckily Lars found this set at a rummage sale for only a few dollars.

The wire organizers make a huge difference in this cabinet. They make it so there is enough space for our pasta bowls, and they make more room for plates so they do not have to be stacked in such large piles.

Having the dishes color coordinated also makes the space look cleaner and less cluttered.

Pots and Pans

The pots and pans were what I was most worried about. I was bringing 5 assorted pots and pans from Vermont and my mom also gave us an old set of hers. I did not know how we would store it all. Well, making use of some more wire cabinet organizers, a wall mounted lid rack, some command hooks, and a cookware organizer, we were able to succeed at my goal of stacking as few pans as possible. 

The door mounted lid organizer was one of the best things to help keep this cabinet clutter free. The cookware organizer worked well for all the shallow pans. Keeping these pans on their sides is so much more space efficient and functional than if we had tried to stack them.

The wire shelves worked for stacking larger pans. The command hook allowed me to hang a strainer in the cabinet without taking up any additional space.

We even managed to fit our large cutting board and a few more plastic cutting boards in the pots and pan cabinet. They were all too tall to fit in the upper cabinets, and they worked perfectly in this space.

Spices

Next up- the spice cabinet. It made most sense to use the cabinet above the stove so we would have easy access to spices when cooking. Well, the cabinet is pretty tall. So we found an amazing solution in our pull down spice rack that allows us to reach all the spices! Yay!

Also- I got a tiered cabinet organizer so we could see all our other cooking oils and sauces easily. I am so happy with this cabinet- it is super functional.

Under the Sink

Next up- the dreaded under sink cabinet. So much to fit in this space. We keep the bulk of our cleaning supplies, dish towels, rags, garbage bags, extra dish drainer, extra large reusable shopping bags, and some laundry supplies under here.

Well, I managed to keep it from getting too chaotic. On the left I used a small bin to keep kitchen dish towels. Next to that is a bin with reusable bottles and cleaning pads (like the pads for our shark mop). Behind those bins there is another wire shelf to make the most of the space.

All the way to the right is a folded up dish drainer. Next to that is a bin with our microfiber cleaning cloths and other rags. And in the middle of the cabinet are all the cleaning supplies.

On the left door, we keep all our plastic grocery bags. On the right door we keep extra sponges. Don’t underestimate the power of cabinet doors for kitchen storage.

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