In the heart of every home lies the kitchen, a hub of daily activity and culinary creativity. However, it's also a place where clutter can quickly accumulate, making cooking and meal prep more of a chore than a joy. As a professional organizer, I’ve seen how a well-organized kitchen can transform daily routines and enhance the joyment of your home. Let’s explore some effective strategies to maximize kitchen storage and create a more functional and welcoming space.

1. Embrace Clear Containers: One of the simplest yet most impactful changes you can make is to transfer pantry items like grains, pasta, and baking ingredients into clear containers. Not only do these containers make it easy to see what you have (and when you’re running low), but they also provide an aesthetically pleasing, uniform look to your shelves. This approach eliminates bulky packaging and makes use of vertical space, allowing you to store more in the same area.

2. Invest in Adjustable Shelving: Fixed shelves often leave unused space, especially with varying sizes of kitchen items. Installing adjustable shelving solves this problem by allowing you to customize the height of each shelf according to your needs. This flexibility is perfect for accommodating everything from tall appliances to short spice jars, ensuring that no inch of space goes to waste.

3. Categorize and Label: Organization is not just about where things go, but also about how easily you can find them. Categorizing your kitchen items and labeling shelves and containers is a game-changer. This system helps everyone in the household know exactly where to find and return items, reducing clutter and saving time during meal preparation.

4. Utilize Vertical Space: Don’t overlook the potential of vertical space. Wall-mounted racks for utensils, pots, and pans or hanging baskets for fruits and vegetables can free up valuable cabinet and counter space. Just remember to store likewise items together so everyone knows where to find them.

5. Drawer Dividers and Organizers: Drawers often become a catch-all for miscellaneous kitchen gadgets and utensils. By using drawer dividers and organizers, you can designate a specific place for every item, making your drawers as efficient and easy to navigate as your shelves.

Maximizing kitchen storage is more than just a way to keep things tidy; it’s about creating a space that supports and enhances your daily life. With these strategies, you can transform your kitchen into an area that’s not only functional but also a pleasure to use. Remember, the key to effective organization is to tailor solutions to fit your unique space and lifestyle. As you implement these tips, you’ll find that an organized kitchen is the ingredient you need for a more harmonious home.

The center of every home is the kitchen. That’s because people have to eat and food is a fun, celebratory, communal and ritualistic part of our human experience. So, whether you’re a world-class chef or just have a world-record in being hangry, having your kitchen organized is essential to maximizing this memory and meal-making space.

There’s a lot going on in the kitchen between food, prepping, cooking and storing so there are many ways to tackle getting it organized. Let’s look at 15 ideas that will help you get your kitchen organized.

1. Decide what to keep category by category. You might instinctively choose to organize your kitchen drawer by drawer or cabinet by cabinet. Instead, consider tackling each and every item according to the category it belongs to all at once. In this way, you’ll go through all your utensils at once. You’ll go through all of your appliances at once. You’ll even go through all of your food items category by category. When doing so, gather every like-item and create the pile so that you can use the “Power of the Pile” when deciding what to keep. The “Power of the Pile” happens by seeing all items in one category at a time, piled together. It helps lessen the pang of getting rid of stuff because there is so much visually apparent, but the pile also helps you to see and eliminate duplicates.

2. Store things category by category. You’ll also do well to store your items category by category. In this way, when you go to choose a pot, tupperware container, spice or condiment, you’ll see all of your options at once. Storing things this way helps you and your family to be more efficient when using things and reduces the effort needed to put things away. That’s because everything in each category goes with all of it’s category members, making it a “no-brainer.”

3. Don’t use surfaces for storage. The temptation can be to store appliances or other items on your counters, but you need that surface space for the art of cooking and preparing food! If you can find a home for everything in your kitchen while keeping your counters clear, you’ll be amazed at how much easier and freely you’ll be able to work. By keeping your counters clear, your kitchen will be more functional and you’ll have less visual clutter. An added bonus is your kitchen will be easier to keep clean if the surfaces are clear. A clean kitchen is a happy kitchen! Plus, studies have shown we eat more the more clutter and messes there are in the kitchen!

4. Remove unnecessary visual clutter. Speaking of visual clutter, consider purchasing items to house your soaps, oils, and other items that will allow you to eliminate the unnecessary visual clutter and will instead spark joy. Visual clutter competes with your ability to focus on what’s important and it wears us out. If you can’t purchase items for your kitchen liquids yet, you may consider removing labels from these items while they are in use in your kitchen until you can afford to replace them with containers that add to your delight while in your kitchen.

5. Simplify the gadgets and appliances. Take a look at the tools and kitchen gadgets you have. Is there a simpler way that you perform a task than what your gadgets and tools call for? For example, do you actually use the apple slicer or do you use a knife? Do you need the grilled-cheese sandwich maker or do you cook them on your cast iron skillet? If you prefer to perform a task in a simpler way than what your gadgets or tools call for, it’s time for them to go.

6. Ditch the duplicates. Many times we have more than one thing that we don’t need. You might have two can openers, five round pie pans and three crock pots. If you’re honest with yourself, you probably have a favorite of every duplicate that is your go-to, the one that you always reach for, even though you have options. While you’re being honest with yourself, you probably can admit you don’t need more than one. Ditching the duplicates will give you the space to store things easily and eliminate the need to make decisions about which of the duplicates to use! It’ll be a win-win.

7. Make things easy to put away. When organizing your items in cabinets and drawers consider Marie Kondo’s advice that storage should reduce the effort needed to put things away. Situate your cabinets and drawers in such a way that everything is easy to put away when clean. That means every item has a specific home that is easy to get to.

8. Give the most used items the best real estate. Store things that you use daily in the easiest-to-get-to spots. While you’re at it, make sure those spots are close to where you’re going to use them, i.e. pots near the stove and coffee cups near the coffee machine. Save the step-stool-needed spots for items you’re only going to use just once or twice a year.

9. Maximize drawer space. Drawers are useful and helpful in a kitchen but it is up to you to ensure you use your drawers to their full potential. This means no drawers with loose items! Instead, each drawer should have containers or separators allowing the space to be organized and functional.

10. Consider vertically folding your kitchen linens. Speaking of drawers, consider folding your kitchen towels, napkins and other linens vertically inside drawers. Doing so allows you to see everything at once when opening the drawer and it better maximizes the space in the drawer. When folding vertically, you will fold an item width-wise in thirds, then in-half lengthwise and finally in thirds. This will allow you to find the perfect rectangle shape that will balance in your drawer.

11. Keep things that spark joy. Everything in your kitchen should spark joy. Is that surprising? Well, it’s true. Your dishes, appliances, foods and containers should contribute to the peace and happiness you feel when in your kitchen. As you go through items from your kitchen category by category, feel free to let go of items that do not make you feel that way. In some cases, you might have to keep items that are important and functional but do not spark joy. Keep those only until you can afford to replace them with items that serve the same function but spark joy.

12. Don’t be a Monica. You may remember Monica from friends keeping separate special dishes for guests. If your special dishes bring you joy, consider using them everyday. We are looking to spark joy in our home, in our kitchen and at mealtimes. If the special dishes do that, why wait for a special occasion to use them? Life is short, every day is a special occasion, so use the dishes you love and ditch the ones you don’t! Consider downsizing any dishes that don’t spark joy.

13. Consider clear storage containers. Clear storage containers for your spices, bulk items and any other applicable food item are a great way to organize your kitchen. The matching clear containers reduce visual clutter and “word pollution” from labels and logos. They also allow you to see clearly what’s in the container and how much remains which will help when grocery shopping. Consider adding small, neat and matching labels with the names of items inside.

14. Help the kids help you. If there are kids that are consuming food from the kitchen and contributing to the mess and they’re able, we want to enlist their help. That means storing their items like snacks, dishes and lunchboxes in places that are easy for them to get out and easy for them to put away. Consider that concept when assigning homes to your items in cabinets, drawers, pantries and fridges.

15. Remember, space is okay. As you minimize then organize your kitchen, feel free to leave margin and space in the drawers, cabinets, pantry and fridge. In your cabinets, it’ll mean it’s easy to put things away and get things out. In your pantry, it’ll mean you can see what you have when you get ready to go grocery shopping. In your fridge, it will mean you have room for leftovers and meal prep. Overall, it’ll mean your kitchen is spacious, enjoyable to be in, easy to use, and easy to maintain

Most of us have fond memories in the kitchen and all of us have reasons to be in the kitchen. If that’s true, why not strive to make the kitchen a joyful and functional place to be? These 15 organizing ideas can help you do just that. By being mindful about what we keep, how we keep it and where we keep it, we can all make our kitchens places we want to be.

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The Art of Maximizing Kitchen Storage: A Professional Organizer’s Guide

Fifteen Kitchen Organization Ideas

There’s a lot going on in the kitchen between food, prepping, cooking and storing so there are many ways to tackle getting it organized. Let’s look at 15 ideas that will help you get your kitchen organized.

Copyright © 2020 by Janine Morales, Professional Home and Business Organizer and Certified KonMari™ Consultant in San Diego and surrounding areas.