Sunday, April 21, 2013

4 Tips to organize small kitchen cabinets


A few weeks ago I shared how I organized our small collection of dinnerware.

IMG_20130324_111829

Inside you can see  one of the items that has helped us stay organized with such a small amount of space:

1. Additional cupboard shelves

As you can see, I have purchased small shelves to give us more usable space. What´s great about them is that they are easily “moved around” and they assist in avoiding piling things on top of each other (which usually translates into a disaster zone sooner or later).

In our remaining cupboards I have used these same shelves. I used one for our pantry and baking supply cupboard and another one for our spice and breakfast cabinet.

IMG_20130324_110555IMG_20130324_112052

2. Lunchmeat containers

These I actually discovered by accident. I got one on sale for lunchmeat and disvocered right away that they were far too large for our tiny refrigerator (meaning I couldn´t use them for their intended purpose).

At first I planned on returning them, but then I had a different idea. 

IMG_20130324_110606

Instead of using them for the lunch meat and cheese, I simply added them to my baking supply cupboard and added oats, corn flour, soup noodles, farina and sweet rice to the different compartments. 

IMG_20130324_111954

As it turns out, this idea was great. Not only does it look much more organized inside the cupboard, but this is actually very space saving. Each compartment can be accessed very easily and its contents are easily visible.

Once I discovered how well this worked, I went back the next week and got one more box for my breakfast things. I love to eat  homemade nut butters with fruit and therefore usually have an assortment of nut flours, nuts and seeds on hand.

IMG_20130324_112152
IMG_20130324_112144

3. Cheap organizers:

When moving into this apartment I purchased 2 small trays/organizers for 99 cents each.

IMG_20130324_112111

The first one holds our spices (due to lack of space we only keep the bare necessities on hand) and another one for baking powder, yeast and vanilla sugar (in Germany those come in small packages). Again, we keep a minimum at hand.

However due to these trays sliding out easily I can assess in a second if anything is needed and what I should avoid buying at that time.

IMG_20130324_112123

4. Large Containers for Pantry Staples

Some pantry staples come in larger quantities, such as flours, sugar, pasta and rice. For those I have purchased a couple of larger containers. Again, everything becomes easily visible and also easily accessible.

IMG_20130324_111928

I have actually used the containers in the back for both – flours and homemade cake and pancake mixes – depending on what I have been baking.

Our cupboards might not be the prettiest cupboards in the world, but they do serve us well and we were able to keep them pretty organized.
For us, the often-cited keys to organized cupboards are working very well. By keeping everything easily accessible, by giving everything its own place and by reducing the amount of items in pantry and cupboards, keeping them organized turned out to be rather easy.