By Guest Blogger Caitlin Burgess
The kitchen is the heart of your home. From sharing a meal with your family to serving as a entertainment area when guests come over, your kitchen is the one spot in the house where everyone gathers. And, a well-organized kitchen adds ease, style and function to the room.
The house I grew up in was built in the late 1910s. It was so charming, but the kitchen was less than accommodating for our family of four, let alone hosting any guests. Luckily, my mother had a knack for cleanliness and organization (something she definitely passed on to me, too).
You only have so much space to work with, so the ultimate organization task will be to organize your kitchen cabinets. Here are a few tips and steps (many that my mother employed) that should get you through it.
Get a fresh start
Step 1: Empty out all your cabinets and give them a nice wipe down inside and out. (Make sure they are nice and clean, but don’t be like Mom and spend four hours disinfecting every inch of cabinet space.)
Step 2: Throw away any questionable spices, sauces or foods, and make a donation pile for any other items (such as extra dishes or cooking utensils) that you can drop off at your local donation center. If you’re like me and have an issue with expiration dates, so this won’t be hard at all.
Step 3: Organize all like items (baking and cooking supplies, soups, boxed food items, seasonal dishes, etc.) that remain and make a plan for where they should be stored. For example, glassware is definitely the most useful by the sink, and spices and other cooking items will be the most useful near the stove.
Step 4: Put it all back in a way that works for you. You know how you use your kitchen, and you should organize in a way that makes your comfortable and will help you function the best in the space. That said, make sure you are making the most of the space. (See “Get Creative” section below for more on this.)
Seems pretty easy, right? Well, it definitely takes time and some mental capacity to get through a job like this. That said, here are a few tips that will hopefully make the job a little easier.
Consider cabinet liners
My mother was a huge fan of cabinet liners and used them in cabinets, drawers and closets throughout the whole house. They are great for giving your dishes a nice, cushy place to hang out until they’re used again, and prevents scratches and knicks on your dishes and in the cabinet. An assortment of colors are available and can be picked up at Target or your local home improvement store.
Use clear containers to store things
This not only allows you to sort of streamline what the insides of your cabinets look like, but also an easy way to group all those like items together as mentioned in Step 2 above. From gravy mixes to packets of oatmeal, the clear containers allow you to easily organize, see what’s in each container, and easily pull it out to get what you need.
Get creative and make use of your space
Minnesota-based custom cabinet maker Christian Brothers Cabinets says a lot of a kitchen’s function depends on its layout and architectural details. If you’re not ready to knock out a wall or do a complete remodel, it’s time to get creative.
Place hooks under cabinets to hang coffee mugs, add some shelving to a bare wall to display some of your rarely used, but lovely serving dishes, or add a ceiling rack to hang pots and pans. This will free up a ton of cabinet space and make it much easier to organize and fit everything.
(Bonus: Look at some pretty kitchen cabinet designs here.)
Get your drawers in check
Cabinet drawers are probably the most annoying thing to organize. Things just never seem to fit right and you always have too much stuff to put in them. Drawer organizers are incredibly helpful. Our post on “Quick Make-Up Drawer Makeover” definitely lends itself to this project. To read the article, click here.
Is your kitchen ready for an organizational makeover? Then get to work! (But, if you need help, you can definitely connect with us!)
Caitlin Burgess is a former community journalist who now works in blogging and digital marketing, (and is a guest writer for Christian Brothers Cabinets). She loves to organize, craft and try out new DIY projects she scouts out on Pinterest, and local blogs.