Home Organization Ideas: Kitchen Cabinet Storage Solutions

- Are your plastic food containers shoved in one large cabinet, ready to cause an avalanche?

- Are your spices stacked up so that the front ones are blocking the back ones? Does it take you a long time to find the nutmeg, and when you look you have to remove (or knock down) the other containers?

- Are your pots and pans scratched and nicked from the way they lay on top of each other?

- Do you have old kitchen appliance, flatware or storage containers that you have not used for the last year or more?

If your answer to any of these questions was, "yes," then you need to begin reorganizing your kitchen cabinets.

The first step is taking everything out of your cabinets. Empty them completely. Start sorting what you have into three piles: "Frequently use," "occasionally use," and "use less than once a year."

Turn your attention first to your "use less than once a year" pile. This will likely be the dish sets your mother gave you when you got your first apartment, a set of jelly-jar juice glasses featuring the Smurfs, the old appliances you have replaced with newer models, or the unique "specialty" tools like fondue sets and turkey carving platters with special drumstick clamps. Get rid of them. If you don't use them at least once a year, or ever, you can do without them. Toss them in the garbage, donate them to a Salvation Army thrift shop, or give them to your clutter-hoarding mother-in-law. Just relieve yourself of their presence in your closet. They are taking up space and of no use to you.

You may be crying right now, "but, I can't throw out my Great Auntie Amelia's heirloom china!" If it's so important to you, why is it buried in the deep recesses of your kitchen cabinets? Do you really love it, or do you just feel guilty getting rid of it? If you really love it, display the china on your dining room wall or in a china cabinet. Or, put the set in a more accessible place and use it more often. If you just feel guilty getting rid of it, pass it down to your cousin's niece once removed; let someone else in the family enjoy it for a while.

Also get rid of any chipped plates or cups (dangerous), hopelessly stained or warped plastic food containers (useless), and any nonstick pots and pans with scratches or chips on the surface (unsafe for cooking).

Now that you have gotten rid of anything unnecessary, turn your attention to the, "use occasionally," pile. Is there anything in there that does a unique job that cannot be replaced by any other item you use regularly? If the answer is yes, keep it. If another tool that you use more frequently can do the job, oust it. For example, do you really need that deep fryer if all you use it for is to make home made curly fries twice a year? Can you just use a pan or pot to fry them, or get the frozen kind? Scrutinize everything in this pile and decide what is really worth keeping.

Once you have minimized your stock, decide which items are used most frequently, which are used together, and which are used less often. Anything used most frequently should be kept in the cabinet that is the easiest to access. If certain things are always used together (for example, dinner dishes and glasses) then put them in the same cabinet, or right next to each other. Keep things you use for food preparation (can openers, mixing bowls, spices) near or above the counter where you prepare food. Keep things you use for stove top cooking under or over your stove. Whatever you use for baking or broiling should be kept near the oven. Things you use most frequently should be on bottom shelves, or in front. Things used occasionally can be packed away on top or in the back. Making a plan like will help you streamline your kitchen for effectiveness.

Now, turn to the cabinets themselves. Look at the spacing between the shelves. The wider the spacing, the more likely you are wasting space. If your cups stand four inches tall, and you have them on a shelf that offers 8 inches of standing room, you're wasting 4 inches of space. If you figure that out by the cubic inch, that can be a lot of space.

One way to utilize that space is by putting in another shelf. If you prefer, you can get wire stacker shelves in just the shape and size you need and place them inside the cabinets. Another option is to put hooks on the shelf above so you can suspend your tea cups and mugs from it, then stack the saucers beneath them. A great option for dishes is to get a plate holder with dowels so that dishes can be slid into place, standing on their side. This not only utilizes that upper space wisely, but makes it easier to remove and replace dishes in your cabinet. Try to adjust your shelf height by moving shelves or using additional shelving options in order to get the most out of every square inch of space. This goes double for lower cabinets, in which we often neglect scads of space by putting a few things to fill up the floor space and ignore all the upper space that exists.

Plastic food storage containers can take up a lot of space. This is why it is best to invest in a good set or two with components that stack inside of each other. This will save a great deal of precious space, and make it easier for you to find what you need when you need it. If you find yourself hanging onto every butter container and yogurt cup, then your storage containers are probably not meeting your food needs. Consider getting a new set, or getting rid of pieces you never use.

Small jars and bottles for spices and seasonings can easily clutter up a shelf. Your best option is to get a spice rack that sits on the counter top or hangs on the wall. Not only will it save you precious cabinet space, but it will make them more accessible, and you won't have to knock them all over and set them all up again every time you pull one out. If it's not possible to get a spice rack, store spice containers in plastic storage bins and set them on your shelves. If you have a lot of spices, keep the ones you use on a daily basis together in one bin. Separate the others using a system you find easy. Perhaps keep them alphabetically (A-L, M-Z) and label it on the part that faces you. Or organize by task-- a green bin for your dried herbs, a red bin for your holiday baking spices, etc.

It's not that hard to make the most of your kitchen storage. Get rid of what you don't need. Try to plan your space by prioritizing accessibility of your kitchen items. Try to find ways of utilizing all of the space (top to bottom) and think of it like a puzzle- everything you put in you will want to be a good fit. You may find yourself with room to spare.