7 Kitchen Organizing Tips
Get (and keep) your kitchen in top shape with these 7 Kitchen Organizing Tips! Simple tips and kitchen organizing ideas that will make your kitchen cleaner and easier to use!
Oh, January…don’t you just love the fresh start feeling of this month?! After the holidays, I, like many, feel the need to clean. And purge. And organize. So that’s what I do every January and what I’m working on right now. Since I spend most of my time in the kitchen I started there. When my kitchen isn’t organized and running smoothly, neither do I! So I’m sharing 7 Kitchen Organizing Tips and I hope you can find a little tip that inspires your kitchen organization!
Practical Kitchen Counter Storage
Keep your most used pantry staples like flour, noodles, rice and oats in easy to access jars on your counter. It’s nice to have these items within reach when in the middle of a recipe. Keeping these staples out on display can look nice too…I love the glass containers that I use in this image below (I found these glass bins at WalMart for ~$10 a piece)…they look nice and they are practical!
Get rid of the clutter.
Try to keep your kitchen counter space as free from stuff as you can. If I had my way I would put nothing on my counters, but that’s just not practical. So I limit the clutter to storage jars, my favourite cookbooks, a few pretty cutting boards, my trusty mixer and of course the coffee machine!
Create Storage if you don’t have any!
If you are low on kitchen storage, why not add a chest of drawers to the space? I keep this set in the eating nook of our kitchen and I have it filled with linens, napkins, napkin rings, candles, extra dishes and there’s even a drawer full of teas. It’s the best storage space and I love it!
Organize Your Pantry
If your pantry is organized, the rest of your kitchen will be organized. I like to put as much of my dry goods, like flour, sugar, salt, noodles, rice, oats, chocolate chips etc…into transparent food storage containers with labels. That way you can see easily see what you have at a glance. Mason jars work great too! This method also helps to keep a pantry less cluttered by getting rid of bulky boxes and bags. If you’re looking for some checklists for stocking your pantry, I’m sharing a Baking Pantry List here, and a Dinner Pantry List here.
I think it’s important to remember that an organized pantry has to work for you and doesn’t have to look like a magazine spread. Mine certainly doesn’t. If you want to see more pantry organization ideas, you can read that in this post here.
Declutter those kitchen drawers!
Again, this isn’t a magazine spread. My drawers are real life, and they get cluttered often and I’m constantly reorganizing them…which is just what happens with you live with 4 other people who use the kitchen. No matter what I do they just seem to turn into a junk drawer! To keep things as organized as possible I have added really simple plastic trays to the drawers that hold my cooking utensils and to my silverware drawers to help keep things in their places. Drawer dividers would work great too! You can read more about what I did this in this post here.
Make Fridge Mats for Easy Cleaning
A while ago I came across a website that sold coasters for the inside of your refrigerator. The idea being that if you have a spill, or your fridge needs a good cleaning, all you have to do is remove the mats and give them a quick wash in your sink…no huge clean-up of your entire fridge. Basically they are there to make clean up easy peasy. I wanted to buy them but I just knew that I could make them myself for half the price. So when I was in my local grocery store I picked up 6 pretty hard plastic placemats and got to work.
How to Make Your own Fridge Mats:
- Purchase plastic place mats.
- Measure each individual shelf and cubby and cut the placemats to fit. If one of the shelves is too big for one placemat, just cut 2 mats to cover the whole shelf.
- If you want, you can also place smaller cut out mats into the cubbies in the door of the fridge (for the condiment areas).
Pare down.
The biggest tip I have to offer is to pare down! Get rid of things that you don’t need.
- Get rid of plastic containers without lids.
- Throw out expired foods in the fridge and pantry. Don’t forget your spice rack and toss out expired spices!
- Donate dishes you don’t use.
- Go through your coffee mugs! This is a big problem for me haha!
- Keep items at a minimum on your countertops.
- Clear out the clutter from the tops of your fridge and kitchen cabinets.
- If you have large kitchen gadgets and small appliances that you don’t use, consider donating or selling them.
- Don’t keep doubles or triples of things. How many pots and pans do we really need?
I hope you found some ideas here to help you with your kitchen organizing!
PIN IT for later!
More Home Organizing and Cleaning Tips!
Looking for more organizing ideas and tips? Make sure to follow me on Pinterest!
Happy Organizing!
Note: This post was originally published in 2013. I have since updated it with new images and tips!
I absolutely love the idea of placemats in the fridge! I have a bunch that I don’t use anymore, great way to repurpose them! Your pantry staples jars are beautiful, I love your whole kitchen, dresser and all! Thanks for the great ideas!
I love the idea of having a dresser for the linens! It looks lovely in your kitchen
BEAUTIFUL Jo-Anna! Everything looks great! I love those clear canisters! Keep it up 🙂
are you sure our husbands are not clones? just go through the lecture that he needs to SEE if we need something before he goes to grocery (which is 3 times a year). Last night he comes home with duplicates, triplicates,…of everything. we did not need. I am definitely going to use the placemats. great ideas..thanks
The fridge mats are an excellent idea. I look forward to exploring your blog more!
Looks fantastic! I love the canisters on the counter and the dresser.
KC
UM I think we might be the same person? LOL! Last year I went on a shopping spree with some GC I received from my job and bought glass containers to sit on my counters, I also pulled my childhood bedroom furniture out of my parents attic, redid them and placed them in my kitchen =0) Though I like how all your containers are the some size.
This is super random, but what is the font you used that is in green on the striped back grounds?
Hi Sarah! It’s called Sketch Block.
Jo-Anna
Thanks for idea to use dime store placemats as refrig shelf liners. So cute. And a more reasonable price than the designer made-specifically-for-refrig liners
I am absolutely loving the idea of the placemats in the fridge. It is such a huge job to clean out the fridge (one of my most dreaded jobs!) and it seems like the fridge gets dirty so soon after I clean it. The placemats would certainly help with the spills and gunk that comes from food containers. I also love your idea of using a dresser to hold tablecloths and other assorted kitchen/dining stuff, but there isn’t anywhere in my kitchen where I could put a dresser. It’s just one big open room – no separate dining nook.