The following is a guest post from regular contributor, Sharon at Mom of 6.
One of the great things about the new house that we moved into in December is all of the drawer space in the kitchen. The drawers are deep, there’s lots of them, and it gives us have plenty of room to store the things that I need in the kitchen. The question was…. how to go about organizing my kitchen drawers in such a way that kept them nice and neat and made things easy to find? I think I came up with a few ways to do just that! Below you’ll find 5 tips for organizing kitchen drawers.
#1 Get Rid of the Clutter!
First things first….. if you have so many things stuffed into your kitchen drawers that you can hardly close them, then it’s time to clear out the clutter! Empty your drawers and decide what items you really use all of the time and which ones are duplicates. Chances are- you’ve collected one too many spatulas, wooden spoons, or other odds and ends. And you probably aren’t even sure why you’re still keeping them! Now is the time to edit what you own, and donate the things that you’re no longer using.
#2 Create Containers for Like Items
My very favorite drawer in my kitchen is my silverware drawer. And it might be because -for the first time ever- I made the investment and purchased these individual bamboo drawer organizer (note: affiliate link) to hold every single item. I love that my pointy knives are separate from my rounded-end knives (so easy to grab the right one to make a peanut-butter sandwich!), and that my serving spoons are separate from my long handled tea spoons and my cereal spoons. Is this totally silly? Of course it is! But looking at this neat drawer makes me very happy!
#3 Sort Drawers Based on Function
Many kitchens have a drawer or two set aside for “utensils”, but if you can take it a step further and create one place for utensils used in baking and food prep, and a separate drawer for utensils used for cooking on the stove, it will be easier to quickly find what you need. In the drawer above, I used larger sized bamboo containers to hold the just measuring cups and different ones to hold kitchen knives for food prep.
#4- Use What You Have!
While it’s lovely to have pretty matchy-matchy containers- it’s also not necessary. In some drawers I’ve used wooden or tin boxes that I already owned to hold items. This little purple box above is a former Melissa and Doug kids craft kit that I now use to hold my (very important) wine accessories!
#5- Use the Items Themselves to Create Organized Sections
In this drawer I keep all of my plastic storage containers, and by separating the lids from the bases and creating a little pattern of space, I am able to have all of the different sized containers in their own space, where I can easily see them, and the items don’t shift around as I open and close the drawer.
What tips do you have for organizing kitchen drawers? Please leave a comment today and tell us!
If you get a chance, I hope you’ll stop by to see me at Momof6 – a place where I write about organizing your home, using a family calendar, creating household routines, hosting at-home birthday parties, and holding a DIY summer camp! You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter (@sharonmomof6), and Pinterest!
Linking up: Six Sisters Stuff, Your Homebased Mom, A Bowl Full of Lemons
Sinea Pies says
I don’t think anything clutters faster than kitchen drawers. It’s like they have a magnet for junk. Thanks so much for the great tips 🙂
Sharon at Momof6 says
I totally agree! It’s like one day you open a drawer and see how much the contents has multiplied!
Chelsea says
I finally purchased a knife holder for my sharps drawer and it is the best investment I’ve made for organization in a long time! Our knives all now have a home and there is no danger of getting cut while digging for the right knife. Since our drawer space is limited and the drawers themselves are not very large, I use a refrigerator storage stray to house like items that I don’t need all the time (in this case, all the lunch packing containers). It sits on a shelf and, when I need it, I can bring the entire tray out and place it on the counter for easy access. When I’m finished, it gets put back in the cupboard. I don’t know about you, but it’s really the little bits of organization that make the biggest difference in my everyday life.
Sharon at Momof6 says
I too use bins to put things into a cabinet so that I can just pull out the whole thing, use what I need and then return it to its storage location- especially items for cookie and cake baking. And I agree- little bits of organization here and there keep me sane!
Sharon at Momof6 says
We’ve got tips here for that too! 🙂
Ann says
I wish I had drawer space for my plastic containers; I’ll bet that would make it easier to keep track of lids! That is one of my pet peeves–never being able to find the right lid for the plastic tub I want to use, ARGH!
Melissa says
My kitchen drawers are so very jealous of your kitchen drawers. I guess I’ll have to do something about that. I think i’ll try some fridge drawer thingies for my out of control spatula and mixing utensil drawer..and maybe I can hunt down a plastic lid holder somewhere. Thanks for the push!
Kelly says
My kitchen cabinets and drawers are not the most efficient layout/combination (like only one utensil sized drawer but other bigger deeper drawers one so high that I can only see in stretching up peeking over the top) but there are soo many other things we like about our house! All that to say I was recently wanting to find a different place to store my boxes of ziplocs and I googled to see what other people were doing and your post was just the “aha” I needed. I now have them in the drawer with my containers and it is working out wonderfully and freed up a cabinet space for one of those plastic drawer things to organize steak knives, cheese slicers, etc. that I want to be out of reach of kids. Thanks! Kelly
Angela Paulsen says
I am in tiny (680 SF) apartment, so you can imagine my limited kitchen space. I am using two matching canisters on cabinet to hold cooking utensils. one is for the soft tools and one is for the others. I can always grab the right one!!