Kitchen Storage Ideas and Organization Tips | Part 1

There is so much that needs to be stored and organized in the kitchen. No wonder this is a long post. This post on smart kitchen storage ideas and organization tips has been split into two parts. Part 1 goes over general storage ideas for the kitchen. Part 2, which you can find here, goes over creative ideas on how to store your pots and pot lids (which can be tricky).

Clever and Creative Storage Ideas For Your Kitchen

A very useful furniture piece to have in the kitchen is a rolling cart, especially if you have a small kitchen that doesn’t have a kitchen island. It can help create the ideal kitchen layout. This cart can be rolled around, put next to you when you are preparing food or cooking, then it can be rolled and stored out of the way when it is not in use – just like in picture (1).
Extendable tables are useful as kitchen tables. They can also be used as kitchen islands.
The inside of cabinet and pantry doors can be modified to store items. Hooks can be fitted to hang up towels. Towel bars can be fitted to store rolls of trash bags, aluminium foil, or paper towels (2). A bracket can be fitted to store cutting boards.
All those rolls of aluminium foil, cling film, paper towels and trash bags can be hung up and organized on towel hangers.
Some knife storage ideas include using a magnet strip on the wall to hang them up, a floating shelf slat (3), they can be stored on the inside of a cabinet door (4), or stored in a knife block or a DIY knife block seen in picture (5).
Most cabinets under the sink are a bit wonky since you’ve got all the plumbing work there. Try and make the most of it by fitting hooks, shelves or a tension rod to create your own customised storage space.
If you don’t mind having more informal seating around the eating table, then you can get a kitchen bench that opens up to storage space underneath.
Ideas for how you can modify your draws is endless. Check out the food storage baskets and closed containers in the draws in picture (6). Or how about putting utensil containers in the draws to keep the countertops clean and clutter free (7). You can even have your spice rack fitted into a draw (8) (Creative Kitchen Spice Storage Ideas and Solutions). You can also have pull out chopping board draws.

To keep the area around the sink clutter free, see if you can fit a floating shelf above the sink to store items.

Peg boards are great for personalized storing and organizing. Hang things up with hooks and pegs, or put a plank of wood between pegs to create shelves. The peg boards can be hung on the inside of cabinet doors, or on a wall. You can also paint them to suit your kitchen style.

Decorative tin cans can have magnets attached to them. Now they can stick to the fridge and store small items like pens, receipts, shopping lists, or coupons (9).

How about creating a command centre in your kitchen to group together to do lists, recipes, schedules, and mail (10). There are a few ways to create a command center, have a look at my mood board here for ideas: Ideas for Setting up a Family Command Center in the Kitchen.

Look up. Take advantage of the height in the kitchen. Built in kitchen storage cabinets can make the most of height space. So can an overhead beam. You might need a stick with a hook to hang things up. Or you can have the beam on a pulley so it can be lowered. Another way to take advantage of the height in a kitchen is to use the walls as much as possible. Floating wall shelves is one way to go, or simply hang up rails.

Look down. There is storage potential at the base of your kitchen cabinets. Toe kick draws can be fitted here to store some non essential items (11). It can also be used a pet feeding station that can be hidden away when not in use.

Adding lighting to your storage units will help make it easier and quicker to find things. You can get door jambs, so when you open the cabinet doors the lights automatically come on. Under cabinet lighting is helpful for lighting up kitchen counters when preparing food.

1 Canisters: $30 Amazon | 2 Jar: $7.50 Amazon | 3 Stackable: $26 Amazon

4 Organizer: $11 Amazon | 5 Mount: $25 Amazon | 6 Rack: $14 Amazon

7 Dispenser: $9.99 Amazon | 8 Baskets: $10 Amazon | 9 Mason: $16 Amazon

10 Pots: $16 Amazon

The Kitchen Island

A kitchen island creates an ideal layout for cooking, as you don’t have to move around the kitchen so much. If you don’t have space for a kitchen island, then a rolling cart would be a great alternative. A kitchen island can be built to have draws or shelves built into it. You can even have a small fridge if you wanted to. Having plug sockets built into the island can be handy.

Styled Ideas

Stylish and good looking storage containers will help decorate and style your kitchen. Here are some ideas for kitchen storage solutions and pieces that look good.

Wicker baskets and trays
Wire baskets and wire wall racks
Enamel containers
Glass jars (much better looking than plastic ones) (12)
Vintage bottles. You could pour any liquids you have around the sink, hand soap/dish liquid, into vintage style bottles or just glass bottles. Now you’ve gotten rid of those branded plastic bottles, creating a more elegant space around your sink.
Wooden ladders can be used to hang up pots, towels, and magazines.

Have a look at these mood boards here for more stylized storage ideas:

Kitchen Layout

The overall layout of your kitchen makes a big impact on how you store your kitchen ware and how easy it is to move around and prepare food. You want to have everything as close to you as possible when you need it – like pots and pans near the cooker. Have a look at these mood boards for ideas on different kitchen layouts:

Mood Board Images: 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12