Back in October I did a Saturday Solution’s post on how I organize my kitchen but I didn’t go into detail about how I use my corner cabinets. So when Dcrmom of Musings of a Housewife emailed me asking for help on deciding what to do with her corner kitchen cabinet I thought I’d share a little about what I keep in mine. Dcrmom emailed me a picture of her cupboards (1st picture below) as she was in the midst of trying to organize them and here is what she had to say:
What really boggles me is my corner cupboard. It is so inconvenient. In my last house, I think I ended up with my dishes in the corner. In this house, I’ve had my cooking stuff, spices, oils, etc, in there, as it’s right by the stove. But I can never get to stuff. I try to keep the stuff I need towards the front, but there are so many bottles, it just gets messy and overwhelming, and stuff falls out on me when I’m trying to get behind the front stuff. ARGH! I’m wondering if putting the dishes there will work better. Right now I have half my kitchen on the counter.
Well I would definitely have to agree. Those corner cupboards are a pain because whatever is kept in the back is hard to reach and can be just plain inconvenient for items that you use all the time. So just looking at her picture above and keeping in mind I haven’t seen the rest of her kitchen, I came to some conclusions about what I would possibly do if this were my space.
As I see her dishwasher is directly below her cabinets I would use the first two cabinets entirely for everyday dishes. In other words I would take out the wine glasses from the one cupboard and all the serving/bakeware from the other and use this space for big plates, little plates, and cereal bowls as well as all the drinking glasses. Then in the corner cabinet I would put coffee mugs/teacups on the bottom shelf because of the proximity to the stove, wine glasses on the second shelf from the bottom and the serving/bakeware that was removed from the other cupboard onto the third and fourth shelves. The order of the last two items mentioned could be reversed depending on which is used more often. Storing items in the corner cabinet that aren’t used regularly is a good use of otherwise wasted space. So to give you an example of what I’m talking about here are pictures of my two corner cabinets in my kitchen:
This corner cabinet is on the left hand side of my sink. The bottom shelf is where I am currently keep all my mixing bowls and colander….this is the only place I keep bowls so if they didn’t fit this space I got rid of them. The other two shelfs are for items not used regularly at all which is a good thing as I have to use a stool to reach them. So far this solution is working nicely for me. Then on the other side of my sink in the corner I have this cabinet:
I keep my crockpot on the top shelf and yes I do use it quite often but hubbie always knows when I need it (he checks the menu plan posted on the fridge) and gets it down for me. This is the only space I really had that fit it. Casserole dishes are stored on the middle shelf and they all fit there. Then I keep all our mugs/teacups/tea pots on the bottom shelf just as I had suggested for Dcrmom and I do this for a couple of reasons. The space is big enough to hold all my cups and mugs and with the help of a wire shelf in the back (LOVE those wire shelves) I’m able to utilize even more space and as well make it easier to reach mugs in the back of the cupboard that might otherwise get lost. Also this solution works well for me because I created my tea/coffee station in the cupboard right next to this one and as you can see the coffee pot is directly below that cupboard and conveniently right next to the stove….click here to see my whole kitchen to get a better idea of what I’m talking about. Here is a picture of the inside of my coffee/tea station. The top and middle shelf hold tea and hot chocolate and the bottom shelf holds the coffee (one white container) and the coffee filters (the other white container):
I’m loving this whole system really well right now and I know that because I haven’t felt the urge to change it in over a two years! That is amazing for me since I always seem to be changing something around. It did take two or three moves to get it to this system though so it wasn’t like I got lucky and figured it all out the first time around.
Dcrmom said she used to keep her spices in the corner cabinet but I notice that she has a lazy susan below and I might be inclined to recommend she try her spices there as that is working really well for me right now. For anyone that didn’t see it I posted about that here.
Anyway I hope that all made sense and hopefully it gives Dcrmom some new ideas to try out.
Thanks for coming by and I hope you are all having a great weekend!
palmtreefanatic says
looks great to me! great solution! your organizing is so inspiring! Keep up the good work!
dcrmom says
Thanks, Laura! This is great. I can’t wait to get to work. I needed a project for this morning, as I’m at home with sick kids. Thanks again!
(sorry, I posted this on the wrong post the first time, duh!!)
Marcia says
Lovely post.
I love seeing how other people organise their spaces – I suppose I’m just nosy. But I get good ideas – well, that’s my excuse anyway!
Lynn says
Great! I need to take Twelve to a bookstore, she needs something for school TOMORROW!!!!! and now all I can think about are my corner kitchen cabinets and how I want to take everything out of them in order get them organized EGADS! How can I possibly drag myself out of the house when I can hear the cabinets calling to me????? What’s a woman to do?
Jennifer says
I have a corner cabinet too (I think it’s my first time to have one). I have glasses in there, because I have more than we normally use for our family of 4, but when we have company we go through a lot more, so we do need others. I don’t remember what’s on the top shelf. I think serving bowls that go with my dishes.
Jenny says
In my corner cabinet I keep cups and glasses on the bottom shelf. Coffee cups on the second shelf and the top one I have to go mugs, thermoses..big water bottles.
All of my cupboards are organized with like items in each cupboard. I keep all my dishes in the same cupboard. Small saucers, bowls and plates on one shelf(I have 2 different patterns so they each take up a shelf) and my top shelf is soup mugs.
Your tea cupboard looks like mine. We have it organized the same way.
In our last house we didn’t have hardly any storage…plus we didn’t have a pantry, so I’m fortunate that we have a house with so much cupboard and storage space.
Thanks for sharing.
janet says
not to be picky or to notice the small details but when my sister, a pampered chef consultant, came to my house and saw my chopper housed like yours is, she made me change it. something about the springs. Your photos help so much. thanks for adding them along with the words. your site is fun and useful. I’m in the decluttering mode, now that I found freecycle on the web. it’s a easy place to give away junk.
Kim says
Great advice Laura. My corner cabinet had the opposite problem since the corner makes the two cabinets more shallow than average. (Basically the angle is the opposite direction as yours, does that make sense) I finally have worked the space to my advantage, but it took 2 or 3 attempts.
Have a great day!
Tammi says
What about lazy susans in those corner cupboards? Then you could reach everything.
Kili @ Live Each Moment says
Ok seriously…….if you get a chance you should come clean/organize my home. I LOVE to be organized, and show those tendancies but since having Little King and expecting our next I can’t seem to stay caught up.
Great ideas.
Rae says
I’ve been fighting with my corner cabinet for a year now. I live in an RV, so my kitchen is *tiny* and the only real storage I have is a black hole of a corner cabinet. There is more than enough room for all my stuff, but making my stuff easily reachable is another matter. I think I’ll retry wire shelves, but go with smaller ones. I can’t believe I haven’t yet found a wire shelf made for corner cabinets; you’d think it’d be a no brainer!
Laura says
Rae I found these ones:
http://www.stacksandstacks.com/corner-shelf-organizer
Hope that helps!