Kitchen Cabinet Organization

One of my favorite spaces to organize is the kitchen. An organized kitchen can make cooking, cleaning, hosting and life so much easier... however a disorganized kitchen can seriously be a nightmare. 

In our kitchen, there are cabinets I love. They are organized, spacious, clean, and it is so easy to grab what you need. On the other side of our kitchen, there are cabinets that make me cringe and despise opening. 

Let's take a look at the nice ones first, just to give you a better idea as to why I dislike the other ones so much. 

You may remember seeing this cabinet come to order in this post

Now, the not so nice looking ones... 

Next to the microwave we have a nice, shallow, cabinet where we store the majority of our baking and cooking essentials. Spices, herbs, cooking sprays, and any other added flavoring, take up some significant space in there, as well as our shelves that are designated for baking and dessert supplies. 

It may not appear too terrible, but when I open the cabinet and just want to easily grab the baking powder, or the tahini, or anything in the back of the shelf, I hate having to remove 4 items just to get to the one I need. 

Also, can we talk about the baking supplies? They're kind of overwhelming things a bit. You may not be able to see how many canisters of sprinkles we own, but let's just say I'm a little bit of a fan, and that may be an entire row of them on the left, as well as a freezer bag full toward the top. I like sprinkles. 

In addition to this shelf, the one above the microwave is a bit of a struggle as well. I mean, who can reach this shelf in the first place? 

See, my idea with this cabinet was that I would put all of our snack and bad-for-you foods up there, that way they were super difficult to reach so instead of snacking on chips and chocolate I might grab a carrot or something else boring from the fridge. Thing is, it only encouraged me to come up with creative ways to sneak treats, climb the counter, repeatedly jump and tug on the corner of a bag, or just take the 5 extra steps over to the step stool and commit to the defeat. 

Anyway, enough about my eating habits, as you can see, it became much more than snack storage. We started storing all of our starchy foods, rice, potatoes, pasta, up there, oh and enough pancake mix to allow us to survive an apocalypse {truly, that is the plan, pancake mix and foil, two Costco purchases that will save us}. We had so many items taking over in there that our snacks started to funnel into a much more accessible location, right in arms reach, right next to the coffee, right where I could see it. It got a little overwhelming as well. More on how I addressed that chaos in a bit. 

For these two cabinets, I just took everything out and irresponsibly laid it all across our gas stove. 

I started by fixing up all of our rices and other starches. I take items like rice, quinoa, couscous, pasta, etc. out of their original packaging, and not for the reason you may think. Of course it looks more organized and I love that, but I also have an unrealistic expectation that one day I will open the cabinet and all of those boxes will have tipped over and come pouring down on my head. The nightmare of cleaning up quinoa from tile crevasses for years motivates me to use these containers. 

I label them, of course, but also include the preparation instructions so that I can easily remember how to prepare each one. 

Some of the items in here that really caused some stress were the foods that came prepackaged, like popcorn and instant potatoes {who has time to prepare them any other way?}. I picked up this super discounted tissue box from Bed Bath and Beyond for $1.50, flipped it over, and now have a nice little storage container to keep the unruly bags from sliding down or falling back behind everything. 

With these items taken care of, I was able to start putting items back above the microwave in a bit of a more organized fashion. 

Ahh, some order. There is still a back row of items but I have a little trick for keeping track of those items. Using dry erase labels and placing them on the inside of the cabinet door allows us to easily see what's in the cabinet, and edit what's on the label as necessary. I actually didn't take a picture of these cabinet doors, but I took one of the cabinet above the refrigerator where we use the same concept {don't ask me why I took one there and not here, sometimes I don't think straight}. 

Remember the purpose of that storage box? Read more about it here

With above the microwave in order, I needed to start addressing the other space. I started with those crazy sprinkles. I knew I needed to contain them all and a freezer bag just wasn't cutting it anymore. I looked over at our recycling pile and found this gem just ready to be repurposed.

Notice the crock pot at work in the background, I promise I'm trying out new recipes, they're just not going as well as planned...yet, more attempts are coming though. 

I cut the top of this box and made it my sprinkle container.

I had a few other dessert items that needed to be tamed as well. Any of you use Birchbox? Guess who just found a new purpose for those little adorable boxes... :) 

I filled one box with cupcake liners and cake pop sticks, and the other will all of our birthday candles.

I am so glad that I was able to use those cute boxes. And, as Brit says, could there be a happier shelf? Icing, sprinkles, and cupcake accessories, it doesn't get much happier than that! 

With all of the sprinkles and dessert items out of the way, I was able to create more space on the other shelves. I wish so much that a nice little lazy Susan would fit on that shelf but it is just too narrow. However, I can now see and, almost perfectly, reach everything! 

Tucked just behind our measuring cups we have a few more dessert additions. "I don't trust a home that doesn't have fluff" - Brit. 

Ok, I told you I'd share where our snacks and treats collection relocated to. Well, here it is. 

Welcome to my temptation nook. Ok, so if you can, look beyond the insane amounts of chocolate and candy, and see if you can find our Soda Stream, Espresso machine, or tea kettle? No? Yea, me neither. This was becoming a bigger issue than just cookies staring me in the face everyday. 

I decided to grab an Ikea storage box that was just waiting to be filled with sweets. Somehow, all of this fit! 

Ahhh mini eggs {salivating} 

The box also takes away the temptation a little because I cannot immediately see everything that's available to me. I added a label and reminder to "pace myself" when opening this delightful box.

The last little annoyance I wanted to address in our kitchen was actually in one of the cabinets I love. This chrome rack that came with our Corningware was just something I could not store well. I was storing it right on top of the dishes, which kinda worked, if a chrome rack to the face each time I went to get a dish down can be considered working. 

 

Using some command hooks, I was able to move the rack to the top of the cabinet. It's such an odd shape and we don't use it very often so this works out perfectly. I can slide it off of the hooks easily when I need it, and it's no longer a facial threat. 

And that's how I spent my snow day! I know, it's sad that it took me having a day off before I addressed stress in our kitchen, but at least we can say it's done now. 

Cost: $1.50 for the tissue box, everything else $0.
Time: 1 hour. Just think about it, one hour to making cooking, baking, clean up, and time in the kitchen less stressful. Totally worth it. 

I guess I should probably start cooking and baking something now...

What are your big stresses in the kitchen? Are there items and spaces that seem impossible to organize? 

Thanks for visiting!