A cozy home is tidy. A tidy home is organized. There’s no way around that. Sorry to tell you, but it’s true. It’s especially true in your Kitchen. Why? When you’re the kitchen, let’s face it, you’re probably working. You’re cooking, you’re putting groceries away, you’re doing dishes. It’s not a relaxing place, generally. If it’s organized, your work will be SO much easier (or so I’ve heard. 🙂 ) I’ve pulled together easy kitchen organization ideas so we can work a little less hard!
Organization doesn’t have to be fussy or expensive. My benchmark for organized is I know where things are so that I don’t have to spend precious couch and coffee time looking for them. It’s not asking a lot. These hacks will help achieve that in uncomplicated and inexpensive ways.
Kitchen Organization Ideas
The kitchen is important because I really believe that as the kitchen goes, so goes the rest of the house. It’s always the first place I clean and as long as it’s sort of pulled together, I’m happy. And a clean and tidy kitchen usually inspires me to pick up a little more in the rest of the house. Maybe even do some laundry.
Dollar Store Refrigerator Makeover from the Domestic Geek Blog
That’s not my fridge in the picture. My fridge. It’s. Something.
Here, this is a great story of how un-tidy my fridge is. I cleaned it out before I went shopping for Thanksgiving. I had in my refrigerator:
5 bricks of Cream Cheese
4 half empty Cartons of Eggs
8 half used Sticks of Butter
That’s a problem. It needs to be solved with some fantastic dollar store organizers as you see in the picture above of a lovely, organized Refrigerator from The Domestic Geek Blog.
What is brilliant about using those bins in the fridge is that you can pull out an entire bin, look inside of it and know if it contains what you are looking for. As opposed to the “Shove it to the Side” technique that I currently use in my refrigerator.
Baking Sheet Organization from Two Twenty One
You have to click over to this post for Baking Sheet Organization from Two Twenty One. The before is awesome because it’s so not disorganized. All of the baking sheets are in the same cabinet, which already = Organized.
Clearly, this file holder system is another level of organization and looks fantastic and brilliantly simple to do. But, what I love most is that it works for Chelsea, the clearly already somewhat organized blogger, but there’s no reason this one wouldn’t also work for me.
Chronically disorganized, untidy, chaotic me.
That, that file folder inside of a cabinet… I can DO THAT. And I can see it being something that I don’t neglect when putting things away. Sliding a baking sheet into that file holder is way easier than my current method of building a pyramid of pots and pans and then praying the drawer closes.
Organized Coffee Cabinet from iHeart Organizing
I drink coffee every day. I drop my kids off at school. I come home to the quiet house and I make my coffee before I dive into my work day. It is a great little ritual.
It would be a greater ritual if my bag of fake sugar didn’t fall out of the cabinet every morning because I did the old “shove it back in and shut the door real quick before something falls out” trick the day before when I made my last coffee of the day.
I can say for sure that this Coffee Cabinet from iHeart Organizing holds even more coffee related items than mine does. I don’t even keep my mugs in mine because I don’t have room. Well, I do have room. If I get rid of the junk that doesn’t belong in there and maybe got some great stackable items like we see above.
Pantry Organization from How to Nest For Less
The pantry is similar to the fridge in that you are going to find yourself constantly shoving things to the side in order to figure out what is lurking at the back. Pro tip, whatever is lurking at the back is never something good.
This pretty and functional pantry makeover from How to Nest for Less has solved that problem in a couple of ways.
- The pantry is super deep, so less room for lurking items. If you have the option of having a pantry in a not so deep closet, take that option.
- The bins and baskets work just like they do in the fridge. You can take the whole thing out, peek inside and grab what you want.
What takes these bins a step further are the great labels included on the bins and baskets. These are fantastic because they will subconsciously remind your people that they should put things back IN THE RIGHT BIN.
Chip Bag Organization from Fennel Seeds
Chips take up SO much room in the pantry. And leaving a bag of chips a little open is a disaster for the chips. No one wants to eat stale chips.
You already know the clip on the chip bag trick. It’s brilliant and solved all of our stale chips problems, didn’t it?
But this chip organization trick from Fennel Seeds take that one step further! With the hardest working organizational tool in the business, the Command hook, you can easily hang YOUR CHIPS!
You’ve got more shelf space now for all of your 23 cans of green beans!
Pantry Door Storage from iHeart Organizing
Every organization book I’ve ever read has had the same tip in it:
Use Vertical Space
By adding a rack to the inside of your pantry door, you’ve suddenly got 4 more small shelves to store things on. The door of this pantry from iHeart Organizing is used for quick grab and go item s, like snacks and coffee packets.
My kids would love a rack of shelves like this just filled with their favorite snacks!
Kitchen Command Center from At Charlotte’s House
The kitchen is a notorious paper collector. I have a desk where I should put paper, but I don’t. I just pile it up in a cozy corner of the kitchen until one day, I say, I should probably go through that and see if there is anything important in there.
That is not a cozy, tidy, organized house.
This kitchen command center from At Charlotte’s House is a great solution. It’s tucked away in a corner that would otherwise go unused and I love how it corrals, papers, pens, a calendar and a whiteboard.
Organized Upper Cabinets from The Homes I Have Made
I bet you have those little cabinets in your house. Mine are above my microwave. Yours might be over the sink, like in the picture.
I went to check what’s in mine. A three tier dessert platter thing (that I forgot I had), lids to Solo cups (I don’t have any Solo cups) and a blender (I blend nothing).
Clearly there is nothing of much significance up there. That’s space I could be utilizing so much better.
The bins (bins again! are you noticing the trend?) in the organized cabinets from The Homes I Have Made are holding TONS of tupperware and spices. So much more practical than what I have going on.
Countertop Organizer from Inspiration for Moms
Life happens in the kitchen. You need things out and accessible. But there is a magical way to make those things look less clutter and more like decor.
You put them in a container.
If you stick a little round tray or a basket around your everday items, they suddenly look contained and like they are meant to be out on the counter. They have a home there and it is in that container.
This tray with utensils and cooking stuff from Inspiration for Moms is a perfect countertop organizer!
Organizing with Cake Stands from Stone Gable Blog
This cake stand organizer from Stone Gable Blog is similar in concept to the previous example of putting a basket or tray under things.
Except the cake stand takes it to another level… Literally.
Raising these things up on a cake stand not only puts your pretty dish soap on display, it also means your counters are easier to clean because you don’t have as much STUFF on them.
What’s Next
We’ve seen some amazing Kitchen Organization Hacks. You know what we do next? We implement them in our ACTUAL kitchens.
Which were your favorites? Which one’s will solve a problem in your household? What’s not on this list that works for you at home? Drop me a line in the comments! I have several I want to try and I’ll be back to share my experience with them.