Care to join me for a walk through a kitchen organization recipe? Good! I didn’t lose you on ‘organization!’
Like many of you, my kitchen hosts expired pantry food, cluttered utensils, the infamous junk drawer (dun dun dun), a drawer-party of mismatched Tupperware and a milk carton somewhere has a picture of one of my lost pot lids posted on it…
It’s time to stop hiding behind the cabinet doors and get organized! I’ve put together some helpful tips from the experts for you (and me), on how to better organize a kitchen.
Out With the Old, In With the New
I counted 9 cans of kidney beans in my pantry… yes 9! (And that wasn’t including Kidney’s cousins, Garbanzo and Navy.) I bet if you walked over to your pantry right now, you would find the same overabundance of a similar canned item. Unless I decided to embark on a kidney bean recipe challenge, there is no need for this many bean pantry guests. Experts suggest going through our pantry items, eliminating the excess, condensing the bulk, and organizing for meal times.
Many local food banks will gladly take on extra canned goods, and the garbage man will haul away the expired. You’d be providing food for the hungry and trash hauler job security. Look at us, helping the world one pantry clean-out at a time!
Recently, I purchased 5 X-large mason jars. Not only are they cute, but they are now home to my sugar, flour, Bisquick, raw-sugar and tea bags. I was over-run with half-empty bags of dry-goods. This one step immediately cleared the clutter, gave me better access and created dry-good decor. Tupperware or canisters also make great dry-good storage and most home-good stores carry wide selections.
Experts suggest organizing by meal-types: baking, breakfast, snacks, breads, dinner side-kicks. Keep your cereals, oatmeal, Nutri-Grain bars circling all together. Let your Stove-Top stuffing and Rice-a-Roni pantry promenade. Doritos and Fruit by the Foots dosey doe… OK! I think you get my drift. When you are visually organized in the pantry, it will help make grocery shopping, meal preparation, and rug-rat snack invasions a bit easier.
“Honey, Where’s My Thing-a-ma-bob?”
Oh, how I love a good treasure hunt in the black hole that is my junk drawer! Batteries, extra shoelaces, an occasional box-top cutout, glue-stick, paper-clips… But… WHERES A PEN!!!?
You don’t have to thank me now, but I went ahead and researched different ‘junk drawer’ organizers.
Modular sizes, rather than organizational blocks, seem to make the most sense to many organizational gurus. Get the sizes you need based on what tends to creep into your drawer and feel proud of your junk drawer! Here are a few suggestions:
Stack-able Acrylic Drawer Organizers: Container Store: $2.99 – $4.99
Bamboo Modular Drawer Organizers: Container Store: $3.99 – $6.99
Wooden Drawer Organizers: Williams-Sonoma: $29.95 – $39.95
Keep a Lid On It!
Lets just openly admit right now that a pot lid collection is one of the most awkward things to organize in the kitchen. Do I keep them with its pot mate? Should I just stack them all? Dang it, my stack is now sliding about… Not only do the pot lids cause organizational stress, but they can also take up far too much room in the cupboard! Let’s explore some simple solutions to this lid mess.
1. Purchase an inexpensive towel rack. A towel rack can be installed inside your pantry door, cabinets or on an open wall. Depending on your lid handle type, they will rest easy on the towel bar and be out of the way once and for all.
Stainless steel towel rack mounted inside the pantry.
2. ‘Get Organized’ is just one company that manufactures this pot lid device. Mounted inside your cabinet, it easily stores, organizes and has a convenient slide out feature. This is just one of many examples of this type of product.
Get Organized: $40.00
3. Don’t want to do any mounting? Martha Stewart gives a seamless foolproof solution to lid organization (Isn’t she clever?). Here I featured a simple wooden peg rack. You can place it anywhere, as it doesn’t require any mounting. There are many options out there for wooden peg racks. Just pick which size works for your kitchen.
Martha Stewart Idea
“Clutter is stuck energy. The word “clutter” derives from the Middle English word “clotter”, which means to coagulate – and that’s about as stuck as you can get.” -Karen Kingston
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