You will never find enough room to store things in your kitchen cabinets, no matter how big they are. Most of us are too lazy to organize things and so, end up having cluttered cabinets and overflowing shelves. Sometimes, the inconvenient structure of kitchen cabinetry makes it impossible to organize things. If you have a closer look inside your cabinets, you will find them full of things, which you rarely use. Often there are memories associated with these things, so there is this guilt factor that prevents you from getting rid of these unwanted things. However, you need to get over your emotions and get rid of these things, as they largely contribute to the mess in your kitchen.
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Following are the tips to organize your kitchen storage cabinets.
Furniture and Flow
This is the most important factor that will determine the state of your kitchen. If in spite of all your efforts, you end up with a cluttered kitchen, it means there is a drastic flaw in the design of your kitchen cabinets. You probably do not have the right amount of space for the right things at the right places. If possible, remodel your kitchen as per the new design which will allow you ample space for all the things. In case kitchen remodeling is not possible, see if you can make alterations to your existing design.
Get Rid of Unwanted Clutter
As mentioned before, the main cause of the mess in your kitchen is the accumulation of unwanted things. Empty all the shelves and cabinets and start sorting the things according to the frequency of their usage. You can group them into frequently used, occasionally used, rarely used, never used, and not usable. Put aside the frequently used things as you will have to arrange them neatly in their respective positions. Group the occasionally used things and store them together in a large cabinet. As far as rarely used things are concerned, you can probably do without them, since you anyway use them once in a year or so.
The group of never used things is bound to give you some tough time. These are the things that have sentiments attached to them such as, the dinner set your mom gifted you when you first got your own apartment or a china set that was passed down to you as a family heirloom. You’ll probably find it too hard to do away with these things, hence, you can consider donating these things or gifting them. As for the heirlooms, you always have the option of passing them down to the next generation in the family.
The group of not usable things will cover an array of things that are no more in working condition. Throw away these things as soon as you lay your hands upon them. After all, chipped cups and plates, orphan pot-lids, old kitchen appliances, etc. are hardly going to be required at any time in the future.
Re-organizing
Again segregate the things according to their types. Arrange all the kitchen cutlery in one drawer, plates in one cabinet, spice jars in one shelf, and so on. Next, put the pots and pans together with their lids. Store the flatware separately in a drawer. Keep the heavy storage containers in the base cabinets or topmost shelves, since you won’t be taking them out very often.
Smart Use of Furniture
You can easily make your kitchen spacious and convenient to use, by making smart use of furniture. Stand-alone frameless cabinets can be put on a free wall or above the sinks. As these cabinets have tapering bottoms, they will not provide any hindrance in the kitchen. You can choose from an array of smart pieces of kitchen furniture such as pegboard drawers, turntable doors, pop-up shelves, etc. to make your kitchen more organized.
These were some of the kitchen cabinet storage solutions that will help you make your kitchen clutter-free. However, you will have to evaluate your kitchen storage space and the number of items you wish to store in it and formulate your own kitchen cabinet storage ideas.
