Smart Ways To Organize Your Kitchen
Smart Ways to Organize Your Kitchen
You’ve probably been discussing the possibility of having a new kitchen, or maybe even some sort of extension to accommodate more kitchen units. How about re-arranging your kitchen instead, to create some much-needed space and save yourself a small fortune in the process.
1. Purchase an Over-The-Sink Shelf
It sounds so easy, but you can free up a lot of space underneath your sink but creating the ability to store things over it. There are about half a dozen things which you are constantly using, so keep them to hand rather than allowing them to use up valuable under the sink space.
2. Maximize Your Under-Sink Storage Space
You’ve freed up space over, now try doing it under, with some handy pocket-organizers in which to store gloves, personal blenders, brushes, bottles, juicers, food processors, immersion blenders etc. You can even re-use magazine holders and use them to store aluminum foil, cling-film and other rectangular items vertically rather than horizontally. Inexpensive super-glue should help!
3. Store Frying-Pans Sideways
Frying-pans and various other wider pots take up an awful lot of space in cupboards, so with a cheap shop pan organizer you can store them vertically and save a lot of space. It will also help protect the Teflon coating which, if damaged, can be bad for health if exposed.
4. Magnetic Knife Holder
A chunky, wooden knife holder looks good, but a magnetic one looks even better. It has that authentic chef’s feel to it, allowing you to store knives flat against the wall, thus saving even more space.
5. Hooks
Hooks are great for creating space. They can be put almost anywhere. Consider affixing them under shelves, from which you can hang a variety of kitchen implements, not just cups. They also help foster that rustic, French culinary vibe in which yours is a working kitchen, a place of warmth and hospitality rather than a cold, show-room model.
6. Shelves
Putting in more open shelves allows you to create a design feature. For example, your selection of spices can be color-coded in a beautiful pastel array, or your selection of teas and coffees from your coffee maker and become talking-points. As for various jams and condiments, why keep them burrowed away in a cavernous cupboard? Thin shelving can do the job, allowing some creativity and original design features you to come to the fore.
7. Invest in a Plate-Rack
Plates take up a huge amount of space, so consider installing DIY strips of vertical wood into a cupboard, which instantly allows you to store the plates vertically. It’s a bit like the way we stack plates in a Dishwasher, but here it’s a permanent, space-saving fixture.
8. Use the Corners
Corner shelving is very useful. It allows you to store all manner of things which might have taken up valuable space in a cupboard. Cupboards should be reserved for the bigger, bulkier, less attractive items like family-sized peanut butter!
9. Ditch the Tupperware
The problem with Tupperware is that it’s square in nature, and so can end up wasting a lot of space. Apart from packed lunches, you’d be better off not allowing a range of Tupperware to take up gallons of space.
10. Purge the Non-Essentials
Of course those extra plates or glasses might be needed for big family gatherings, but the average family only needs a limited number of plates, cups, items of cutlery etc. so try and put excess crockery and other items into kitchen storage, to be wheeled out for those rare special occasions.
As with time, we can’t actually create space, but hopefully some of these ideas will help you to re-arrange your use of space in some small yet surprisingly effective ways.
Sources:
- Organize Your Space – IOWA State University
- 4 Smart Ways to Organize Your Apartment’s Kitchen – Captions