How to Organize Your Kitchen Properly
The notion of a beautiful kitchen these days is all about having hundreds of utensils and appliances with an enormous area that fits at least 10 people.
While this would be more than ideal, it doesn’t really mean that a small kitchen can’t be beautiful too.
In fact, it’s more about organization and order than about space or number of items. Functionality is more about how easy it is to cook in it – not how big of a chicken you can prepare.
That’s why we want to help you create the most enjoyable experience inside your kitchen. No matter how big or small, and not by adding items or buying new appliances, but by merely reorganizing all your stuff the right way.
So, are you interested in optimizing how your kitchen looks and feels? Then come and see what we have for you!
Kitchen Organizing Tips For Beginners
Get Rid of What Isn’t Useful
The first thing is to declutter your kitchen. Everyone has at least 2 or 3 items that are always hanging or stored but that that they rarely ever use. If you have any of these rarely or completely unused items cluttering up your space, get them out of your kitchen ASAP.
Be objective here. Try to classify every item as either “essential” or “non-essential.” Anything that you don’t use at least once every week goes to the non-essential category. Everything else stays in your kitchen.
All of your non-essential items should be out of the cooking space. It doesn’t matter if there’s a complete set of useless knives, an ice-cream machine, or an electric pressure cooker that you use every three months. Get them all out if you’re not using them at least once a week.
This will be hard, though. And we know not everyone will have enough space in their basements, attics, or storage rooms to place all these non-essential items. But as long as you keep them out of your kitchen without cluttering other spaces in your house – then that will be enough.
As for items that you’ve never used or that you think will never be useful again – those you can either toss or give away. There’s no point in having items in your kitchen that you will never use, much less if they aren’t even useful anymore.
Clean Everything Deeply
Once you get rid of all the unusable items inside your kitchen, it is time to do a deep clean.
This step is probably the most important. Organizing your kitchen is not just about the order of items or the number, but how neat everything feels.
So, clean everything. Get deep inside the dust and residue. Try to leave everything shining, from the cabinets to the drawers, to the stovetop, the tabletop, the microwave, and even the handles of all your utensils. Everything should feel like a whole new kitchen.
This will leave a way better feel by just stepping inside. Now, you’re not only decluttered, but also clean and amazingly peaceful.
And when it comes to getting your items back into their place – you will feel even better.
Use the Ideal Containers, Drawers & Cabinets
Having chaos inside your kitchen is not only about having too many items or a dirty tabletop. Sometimes, it happens that people have too many containers, useless drawers, or cabinets that are either too big or too small.
To store everything comfortably inside your kitchen, the best thing you can do is only to use containers that look all similar. We recommend neatly labeled containers for your herbs and spices, of rectangular or square shape that can be put together side-by-side without cluttering the tabletop.
As for cabinets, make sure they are big enough to host all your long-lasting items, but also small enough to not take too much space. You should quickly grab the handle and open, grab whatever you need in seconds, and then close again.
And if you have too many drawers, reorganize all your items, so you don’t need more than two or three. Having too many drawers eventually ends up in cluttering.
Being an organized person demands consistency. And when you have cabinets that are too large, empty drawers with impractical items inside, or containers that don’t look uniform – then your kitchen will not feel organized.
Set a Space for Preparing Food
After reorganizing containers, drawers, and cabinets – it is time to set a space for making your meals.
Here is where you start finding the right area in which you feel more comfortable cooking. It should be a space in your kitchen where you stand with nothing restraining your arms movement, your sight, or your legs.
Ideally, this is space close to the stove and dishwasher. If you have a big kitchen, it could be just in front but close enough to reach in only three steps or less.
You should have utensils close, containers with spices or herbs within easy reach, and fridge, freezer, drawers or cabinets with food less than five steps apart.
This will be your preparation zone. Here’s where every kitchen experiment will start and will end. Just focus on feeling comfortable in that space, and you will have 90% of the job done.
Find a Logical Place for All Items
This is perhaps the most essential part of organizing your kitchen: finding a place for everything in the most systematized way possible.
Once you have everything organized, then it will be easier to cook your favorite food. However, this is the only step that can take several hours to days to be completely done.
It will be close to doing Feng Shui in your kitchen – but instead of organizing to meet the laws of nature, it will be organizing to feel as cozy and as practical as possible inside.
For this, you’ll need the drawers, cabinets, and containers ready. Then, you can follow this organization for the best results:
Everyday Items
Everything you use each day of the week, such as plates, bowls, glasses, cutlery, dishes, and so on – should be placed close to the dishwasher and your set cooking area.
These are the most essential items in your kitchen, so why not have them in the handiest place possible?
Cooking Items
All the items that you use for cooking, such as wooden spoons, spatulas, pans, pots, bowls, baking products, and spices – should all be close to the stove.
This will make it easy to access when you’re cooking, always depending on your needs.
Pantry Items
Here, you can focus on placing items such as kitchen gadgets like microwave or toasters, blenders, food grinders, and dry goods like cocoa, cinnamon, nuts, and even grains if you desire.
This place can be about 4 steps away from your food-preparing area, as this will only be useful with foods that need less cooking and/or preparation. Your appliances will also feel more comfortable in this space.
Storage Items & Accessories
Anything you use to store food like Tupperware containers, tin foils, baking bowls, food wraps, and the like. They all should be close to the freezer, but also no more than 4 steps from the place where you prepare meals.
Whenever you may need these items, then you can have them at close reach to your freeze or preparing area.
Bar & Coffee Items
From your coffee cups to your coffee pots, along with any glasses and glassware for drinking alcohol – they all should be in the same place.
We recommend a place away from where you prepare food, but close to the fridge and freezer. In a large kitchen, it could be opposite to the refrigerator so you can have close access to ice and water when needed.
Cabinets & Drawers
The cabinet and drawer organization is not about where to place them, but what to put inside them depending on their location. Canned foods, cereals, sugar and salt, pasta, rice, and maybe even grains – they should be in a place close to where you prepare meals.
Under the Sink
As for cleaning supplies, soaps, garbage & recycling bags, trash cans, and other similar items – put them all below or close to the sink. The same with appliances like dishwashers and food processors – as close to the sink they are, the better.
This will help you keep cleaning products and food residues away from the rest of the items and food.
Keep Everything at Hand’s Reach
After having everything organized, it is time to learn how to put them at close reach. You won’t like to eventually need a specific piece of cutlery to find out that you can’t even get to it in time.
The same happens with dishes, bowls, food containers, utensils, spices, and so on – if you need them regularly, try to have them as close to your reach as possible.
As for those items that you use only once a week or less, then you can put them further away from your reach. It’s all about prioritizing your most useful items and setting your less useful ones aside.
And of course, always consider putting the things you like the most closer to reach than the rest. Especially foods that you’re always preparing – they should be close to where you prepare them so you won’t have to make more than just a couple of steps to reach them.
In the long run, this will save you lots of time and effort when preparing your meals.
Use Your Creativity
Finally, it is only a matter of being as creative as possible to organize things as effectively as possible. To get your organization creativity going, here are a few ideas that you can implement in your kitchen:
- Install hanging racks for utensils, pans, pots, and similar items that you use while cooking close to the stove.
- Hang additional items to the doors of your pantry or cabinet. Use a shoe organizer or anything similar for placing extra items.
- Drawers can always feel much more organized with dividers inside. Especially for cutlery, dividers can save you a lot of time browsing.
- Magnetic holders for your cutlery or knives always save a lot of time and effort. They are also safer than storing in drawers.
- Use wire shelves on the sides of the pantry, freezer, cabinets, or in empty walls close to where you prepare foods. Here you can always place things like spices for more convenience.
- Alphabetize drawers, cabinets, and containers depending on what you store inside. This will help you access them more quickly, but also help strangers or visitors not to feel as lost.
These are just a few ideas you could consider, but you can always add your own.
Whatever you do, just take into account all of our previous advice. Then, you’ll probably have the perfect kitchen.
Start Organizing Your Kitchen Today!
Once you have everything in the right place and as handy as possible without not even an inch of cluttering – then you’ll feel amazing in your kitchen.
Everything from making a simple sandwich to cooking the most complicated dish will be a total pleasure.This could take several hours or days. Sometimes, you may spend months trying to reach the perfect organization. So take it slowly and don’t rush.
Remember it’s all about feeling comfortable, so don’t stress about it. Just follow our advice with care, and you’ll get there sooner or later.
Items To Help Organize Your Kitchen
While it seems strange to buy extra products when you’re trying to declutter and tidy, these amazing products will all actually create that extra space you need to finally feel clean and organized.
Great for adding instant extra space inside your kitchen cabinets and pantry:
For the fridge:
For under the sink:
If you would like more help in organizing not just your kitchen, but your whole house (and life!), Get Organized – Get Happy is a fantastic resource.
Whichever methods you choose we know all the work will be worth it when you finally have your kitchen properly organized, clean and functioning just the way you want it!
