Kitchen Drawer Organization

Simple and practical tips for your Kitchen Drawer Organization!

Ahhh January. What is about this month that makes everyone want to clean and organize? What ever it is, I love it, and need it. I know for me, putting away the clutter of the holidays makes me feel good. It’s like a fresh slate and a new start.

With the kitchen being such a main focus of our home, I thought it was a great place to start organizing. My cupboards and drawers are busting at the seams and are so disorganized…I can barely stand it. That and the fact that I have no where to put a few new things that I received for Christmas.

I started my kitchen organization mission with my utensil drawers, and here are the before pictures. You know how cluttered and frustrating these drawers can get when they’re packed with stuff! These drawers are a mess. In our house there are 5 different people emptying the dishwasher, so things get put all over the place and it drives me bonkers. So instead of making a big deal about it, I decided to make things easier for everyone by creating places to put things. And in order to do that, it was time to sort and organize.

Since I was in organization mode, I thought it would be helpful to share some tips and ideas that I use to get my kitchen organized and functioning in a way that I find helpful for me. These are simple and practical ideas that don’t cost a lot of money or take too much time to implement. I understand the temptation of wanting things to look perfectly organized. But when you’re dealing with a number of random kitchen items, there is no way your drawers are going to look picture perfect like magazines sometimes make us think they should look. In reality, it’s really just about having something that is functional, easy to access and easy to use. My biggest goal for my drawers is to be able to open them and find what I need without something jamming them!

Tips for Organizing Your Kitchen Drawers:

Tackle one drawer at a time. That way you won’t get overwhelmed. Seriously. You don’t need to do everything all at once. Pick a drawer and do a good job organizing it. Then tackle another one the next day. It will all get done.
Take everything out of the drawer first. Then clean it out with warm water and dish soap.
Get rid of items you don’t use. If you haven’t used something in the last 3 months, donate it. If it’s broken, recycle it. If it’s garbage, throw it out. I’m always amazed at what I find in my kitchen drawers…corks, garbage, toys…
Buy drawer separators. Drawer separators are your best friend when it comes to organizing your drawers! They are the best because they allow you to sort things easily. The ones that I used here are these ones from Ikea.
Put all your most used items up front. There’s no sense in putting spoons that you use regularly at the back of the drawer. Have a space up front that holds all your most used items…things like a wooden spoon, a spatula, garlic press, whisks, and vegetable peelers…all together in one easy to access space.
Then sort like items. Put all the bag clips together. Keep all the wooden spoons together. You get the idea.
It doesn’t have to look perfect. Like I mentioned above, things don’t need to look perfect, they just need to be functional and practical for you.

And here is the after. It’s not perfect, but it is a lot easier to use. Nothing is jamming when I try to open the drawer, and I can easily find my most used items. I also find that when I organize like this, I tend not to keep adding new things…if they don’t fit, I can’t have it.