Kitchen Organizing Ideas.

[DawnCt1]

We are getting towards the end of our kitchen renovation. I figure by Sept 1st or so, I will begin putting things back into the new kitchen. We took all of the old cabinets, set them up in an area of the basement and put all of our stuff away. There are a lot of things that we do not use very frequently, baking items in particular. I bake a cake about every three years. In our new kitchen we will have a large pantry with roll out shelves, a LOT of drawers of varying depth, etc. I thought that I would prefer more drawers this time for plastic ware, etc. Tell me what you use your large, deep drawers for, or any other organization tips you have. I can't begin to put things away until the floors are done with the final sanding and I can finally dust.

 

[mickeysgal]

Dawn, we remodeled our kitchen a year ago. Except for the sink base we have all base cabinet drawers, no doors, no cabinet rollouts. They vary from 12 inches to 36 inches wide depending on the cabinet. Love, love, love the drawers and don't regret it for a moment. We use the deep drawers for dishes and pots/pans. I spent every spare moment I had over on gardenweb.com...the kitchen forum. Those folks know everything there is to know about kitchen design, organization, layouts, plusses/minuses on everything. We did put a spice swing out cabinet insert into one of our upper cabinets next to the cooktop. Above the built-in microwave/oven/warming drawer we have a large cabinet which I put an organizer in for those cookie sheets we hardly ever use; they stand on end. We also have an ultility drawer which has a sliding top shelf/organizer. It takes up the dead air space that is usually present in a drawr. Also have a pull-out garbage bin. Best thing ever...no more unsightly garbage can on the floor out in the open.

Again, gardenweb.com would be your best bet for any other tips. Those folks are wonderful and love to help.

Good luck.

 

[DawnCt1]

Dawn, we remodeled our kitchen a year ago. Except for the sink base we have all base cabinet drawers, no doors, no cabinet rollouts. They vary from 12 inches to 36 inches wide depending on the cabinet. Love, love, love the drawers and don't regret it for a moment. We use the deep drawers for dishes and pots/pans. I spent every spare moment I had over on gardenweb.com...the kitchen forum. Those folks know everything there is to know about kitchen design, organization, layouts, plusses/minuses on everything. We did put a spice swing out cabinet insert into one of our upper cabinets next to the cooktop. Above the built-in microwave/oven/warming drawer we have a large cabinet which I put an organizer in for those cookie sheets we hardly ever use; they stand on end. We also have an ultility drawer which has a sliding top shelf/organizer. It takes up the dead air space that is usually present in a drawr. Also have a pull-out garbage bin. Best thing ever...no more unsightly garbage can on the floor out in the open.

Again, gardenweb.com would be your best bet for any other tips. Those folks are wonderful and love to help.

Good luck.

Thanks for the suggestions. I am happy to hear that I will love the drawers. I wasn't crazy about the cabinets that I would open and everything would fall out. We did put the pull out garbage and recyling bin in. I am so excited abou that, that the plastic liner bags have gone in already. I used to keep my garbage can under the sink. Any suggestions for under the sink storage will be most welcomed. I have a couple of plastic caddies but I saw a Rev a shelf undersink caddy that seemed like a good idea.

 

[AKL_Megs]

I have a great system, I think.

I have no actual pantry, but I have two tall and deep pantry cabinets. In one I keep canned goods, pastas and sauces - basically anything I would use to cook. In the other, I keep snack foods and cereals.

Under the sink is cleaning products.

Above the stove is spices, Pam spray, olive oils, etc.

Next to the oven is a baking cabinet. I keep baking mixes, sugar, flour, baking powder, etc., in there.

Also next to the stove is a drawer with oven mitts.

Next to the stove and microwave is a cabinet I keep tea and coffee in, as well as Crystal Light or other drink mixes.

Glasses and coffee mugs each have their own cabinets, plates and bowls have their own cabinets, and utensils have their own drawers.

I have a junk drawer for junk, and a tool drawer for everyday tools.

Baking dishes and tools (Crockpot, Magic Bullet, electric beaters, etc., all have a large deep lower cabinet.

Plastics have their own deep lower cabinet. Everything plastic can be found there.

I also have a small cabinet for Ziplocs and foil and those sorts of things.

 

[AKL_Megs]

I also forgot that we have a cabinet for extra paper towels, paper plates, garbage bags. It's SO convenient in case you store things from Costco in a basement.

I also have a drawer that is about 3' wide. It is GREAT. I can lay out all utensils flat and find anything when I need it. Most would probably use it for Ziplocs and things, but it is GREAT when cooking for finding specific tools... Just a suggestion if you have a wide drawer like that.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

In my old kitchen...the pantry had drawers...it was deep and this prevented "lost" or "forgotten" pantry items at the back. Shorter drawers towards the top and taller spAces at the bottom for things like cereal boxes.

Pots and pans cabinets were drawers as well.

And one other cabinet for counter appliance storage. (I didn't like my counter cluttered).

New house has an island with power...very cool. But I miss my drawers.

One feature that would be neat is the pull out spice cabinet that takes advantage of a narrow space by having a spice rack that pulls out.

Lazy Susan cabinets seem like they would be cool...but I am not a fan. Stuff always seems to fall off.

 

[golfgal]

All of my lower cabinets are either drawers or pull out shelves and I LOVE them. I would go to all drawers when we renovate if it works.

When we moved in her I just imagined myself getting a glass of water and walked to a cabinet and that is where I put the glasses, etc. Some things were more obvious like the spices by the stove. We have one drawer that has built in dividers for silverware.

In the pantry we have a couple baskets to keep bags of chips, etc. I have some Rubbermaid container to hold other loose items like bags of seasoning, etc.

 

[mickeysgal]

Thanks for the suggestions. I am happy to hear that I will love the drawers. I wasn't crazy about the cabinets that I would open and everything would fall out. We did put the pull out garbage and recyling bin in. I am so excited abou that, that the plastic liner bags have gone in already. I used to keep my garbage can under the sink. Any suggestions for under the sink storage will be most welcomed. I have a couple of plastic caddies but I saw a Rev a shelf undersink caddy that seemed like a good idea.

You won't regret the decision to go to all drawers. I have a kitchenette in our basement and there I do have base cabinets with doors with pull-outs and I still find myself not fully opening the door and pulling on the tray which bangs/dings the door. Also, it's a two step process to get to things...open the door, pull out the tray. With drawers, it's one motion. You're going to love it.

Under the sink, we have a "Never MT" soap dispenser that is hooked to the built in soap pump on the counter. Love it. And it's cheap and simple to install. It's a hose/pump that hooks to a large bottle of hand soap. You never have to fill those little bottles that come with a built in soap dispenser. We also have a small hot water dispenser that we bought at Costco for instant hot water. That takes up some space. The rest of the space is for cleaning supplies.

My favorite things besides the drawers on all the base cabinets? The pull out garbage and believe it or not the type of undercounter sink we got (again a recommendation from gardenweb). It's a 60/40 split sink, (can't remember the brand name), it's nice and deep, large enough on the one side to lay down a large round pizza pan, and the best part, both sides of the sink have grids. Love the sink grids. I didn't think it was a big deal with I read about them on gardenweb, but you know what, they were right!

 

[Kath2003]

We recently moved to a house with three times as much kitchen storage as our last place. To put this in context, we own three pans. Total. So we had a LOT of space to play with

We organised it based on our appliances.

Stove has pans in a cupboard near it, top drawer next to it is cooking utensils, next drawer down is oven gloves, then casserole dishes, then baking trays etc. Cupboard next to it on the wall has spices, seasonings etc.

Cupboard on the wall above the dishwasher contains dishwasher powder, kitchen roll, First Aid (easy to get to and near the sink!) etc.

Cupboard above the sink has all the cleaning products, dishcloths etc. Cupboard below the sink contains bleach and our recycling box.

Cupboard above the washing machine is used for all laundry products.

Cupboard above the main prep area has all plates, glasses etc.

Cupboard above the kettle has tea-making equipment & "the treats" (biscuits!).

Drawers nearest the breakfast bar has placemats etc.

We then filled out the rest of the cupboards based on accessibility (e.g. the "pantry" cupboard is easy to get to, but the "serving dishes" cupboard isn't).

I'd say most of our cupboards are less than half full, but I do like the arrangement so far.

One thing I DID insist on is a big drawer for plastic food containers & their lids - SO much easier routing through a drawer than through a cupboard.

 

[golfgal]

Our pantry cabinets are double deep too. We have 3 of them in the kitchen and I can store all of our "big" stuff in those like our big griddle, all of my seasonal dishes, etc. They do not have slide out shelves and I would like to have them on the lower shelves at least.