Two Tips for Quick Kitchen Organizing

If you’ve read my blog or been on my website, you know that I grew up in a small home and lived in many of them throughout college. With a small home comes an even smaller kitchen and if you’re someone who enjoys cooking as I do, you’re always looking for ways to organize your kitchen better, whether large ….

{ via Traditional Home }

or small….

{ via kitchentrend }

As a designer, my job is to help my clients use their space well and make it visually pleasing.  When working with any client, each space is different, so I’m always sourcing new and different solutions to help organize them, however I have a rule:  it must look good.  There’s absolutely no sense in spending the time and money to design a space and then using an organizing solution that is obtrusive and obviously out of place, even if that place is in a drawer or cabinet.

Recently, I found these two incredibly simple, easy and inexpensive solutions to organize two spaces in the kitchen that we usually just put up with and that don’t work well:  the drawer with the oddly shaped foil and plastic wrap containers and the drawer or cabinet with plastic bags.

{ via Four Miles North of Nowhere }

We keep plastic produce bags to use to pick up after our dog on our daily walks. I think they must make them with some secret ingredient that enhances static cling because we can never just pick one out of the drawer! They stick together and end up on the counter or floor, usually when I’m in a rush because the dog is excited and barking to get out the door.  However, this stainless steel bag organizer from the Container Store stores all the bags in one small space and mounts to the inside of the cabinet.  Not only did it solve my problem,  my drawer is now available for use for other things…

{ via Simplehuman }

Like this excellent drawer organizer to hold those long, awkward utensils and small items that always roll around the drawer when I open it.

{ via Houzz }

The other quick solution to kitchen storage problems is more of a solution to an annoyance than anything.  Most people also store their foil, plastic wrap, parchment paper and Ziploc bags in a drawer, which also takes up valuable space, particularly in a smaller kitchen.   I also find it difficult to pull out the foil box without pulling the drawer out fully, which can also be an issue in a space-challenged kitchen.  Typically, we store other items in this drawer, as well, like power cords for mixers, etc.

{ via Flickr }

This door-mounted organizer frees up that drawer for another use. I found others, however I like this one because the open design is easy to clean and the individual compartments prevent the boxes from falling over when one is removed.

{ via Container Store }

So, with these two simple solutions, we’ve not only organized two potentially problematic and annoying areas in your kitchen, we’ve now created two additional areas, drawers or cabinets for you to use!