How To Get (And Keep) Your Kitchen Organized

Having a well-organized kitchen is every homeowner’s dream. After all, you can get a lot more cooking done a lot more quickly if your kitchen starts out clean and if all your cooking tools are easily accessible. It’s one thing to organize your kitchen and get it looking nice for a short while. It’s another thing entirely to keep your kitchen organized for the long haul.

Since cabinets, drawers, and countertops make great places to store things but not necessarily to organize them, all your hard work can quickly go to waste if you don’t utilize clever hacks to turn these spaces into an organizational paradise. Here are a few ways to do just that.

Hanging fruit basket

If you’re the type of person who likes to have a totally clear countertop, you’re not alone. Figuring out how to achieve that totally clear countertop, though, can be a bit of a challenge. Even if you’re able to store your small appliances, tackle paperwork clutter, and remove all traces of kitchen utensils, you’re still left with that ubiquitous kitchen essential: the fruit basket.

Since many fruits need light to be able to properly ripen and remain appetizing, you can’t really hide a fruit basket away in a cabinet or pantry. However, you can utilize a hanging fruit basket to finally free up that last little bit of counter space, once and for all. If you have your kitchen sink under a window, you can hang the basket near this window to allow the fruit to get ample natural light and to make it quick and easy to rinse the fruits when you’re ready to eat them.

Retractable cookbook stand

Part of smart kitchen organizing is utilizing all those spaces that would otherwise go unused- even the smallest ones. For example, that small lip under each of your top cabinets is essentially wasted space, unless you utilize it to hide something that would otherwise be in the way.

Sure, you could use it to hide lighting fixtures like most people, or you could use it to install small retractable shelves that you can hide cookbooks on. Then, when it’s time to cook, you’ve always got your favorite recipes easily accessible and able to easily be read. If you’ve got a few select cookbooks you use most often, you can install one of these shelves under each of your cabinets to house your entire cookbook collection.

Freezer organization

Whether your freezer is located above or below your refrigerator, keeping it organized can be a big challenge. Since there’s typically fewer shelves than a refrigerator, food can tend to get pushed to the back and forgotten about, only to be re-discovered during a major cleaning project as a frosty, disgusting mess. To avoid this food waste, you can utilize magazine holders as food separators and organizers.

Since most freezer food, especially items like frozen vegetables, French fries, and the like, can be made flat, you can flatten out the packages they’re in and insert them into the magazine racks. Then, you can organize the items into categories such as fruits, veggies, and starches. This way, even if items get piled on top of each other, you’ll be able to easily see exactly what you have at any given time.

Wire rack shelves

One of the difficulties in organizing any kitchen is trying to figure out how to keep small items, such as cooking utensils, spices, canned goods, and cleaning products, organized in large spaces such as cabinets and pantries. Especially in cabinets, the shelves tend to be too far apart to allow for maximum usage of the space, ending up in disorganization, over time.

By utilizing different-sized wire rack shelves, you can customize the size of each shelf in your cabinets, allowing you to store more and keep the items you store better organized. Take, for example, your spice cabinet. Most spice containers are not tall enough to necessitate a typical shelf space. With a wire rack shelf, though, you can store twice as many spices and keep those spices more organized so you can find them more easily. A bonus tip here is to utilize these shelves in your refrigerator to compensate for a lack of pre-installed shelving units.

Trash can hiding

If you have a portable kitchen cart, chances are the lower shelves tend to be under-utilized. Or, if you do use them heavily, they likely suffer from a good deal of disorganization. Instead of letting this space suffer, why not transform it to hide your kitchen trash can?

If your cart isn’t already enclosed, you can use some simple decorative fabric to create a convenient hide-away for your refuse container. If you’ve previously had your trash can hidden in a kitchen cabinet, this will free up a lot of space in which you can now store a variety of other items. Plus, now you can easily transport your trash can wherever you need it, whenever you need it.

Organizing your kitchen doesn’t have to be hard. The key is to understand how you use the items you have so you can organize them in ways that make them easily accessible. With a few ingenious hacks, you’ll be well on your way to having that organized kitchen you’ve always dreamed of.

My name is Jordan and I am an editor at DIYerHacks. I love to work on different projects that reuse and recycle materials. I love the feeling of working with my hands and making something from nothing out of them! When I’m not working on a project, I usually spend my down town hanging with friends and attempting to live my best life!