7 Top Kitchen Organization Strategies to Help You Get Organized

Having an organized kitchen is essential for creating a space that’s comfortable, clean and restful. The kitchen is a high-traffic room of the home. Our kitchen is a gathering place, in the mornings, before meals or just as a place we are constantly passing through. The kitchen is the working, heart of the home and having a clean, well-ordered space makes cooking and cleaning pleasant and efficient. Whether we are making a latte, cooking a meal, or cleaning up after dinner, having a kitchen that is well organized saves time and money! These 7 top kitchen organization strategies to help you get organized!

Arrange Your Kitchen in Zones for a Better Working Flow
Clear Countertops of Small Appliances, Ingredients and Utensils
Utilize Vertical Space in Pantries, Cabinets and Walls
Add Drawer Dividers and Organizers for Efficient Storage
Group Similar Items Together for Easy Access and Inventory Tracking
Use Airtight Containers with Labels For Food Storage
Be Sure to Declutter Regularly

1. Arrange Your Kitchen in Zones Kitchen for a Better Working Flow

I suggest designating certain areas of your kitchen for specific tasks to maximize function and to group similar items in areas where they are most commonly used. I set my kitchen up like this:

Zone 1 – Food Preparation

I chose the area of my kitchen with the most amount of space for my food prep spot. Counter space is essential for prep work because prep usually involves chopping fruits and veggies, seasoning foods, preparing sauces, and combining ingredients. Prep is usually one of the more time consuming part of cooking and requires more utensils. That’s why I keep my cutting boards, knives and mixing bowls in this zone. We try to make sure that they are easy to grab from under the island because my island is a great space to spread out my various bowls, cutting boards, measuring coups and ingredients. Another tip is to try to locate this zone near your kitchen sink. The kitchen sink is the most use feature in a kitchen whether you are doing prep work or cleanup. Try to keep this in mind when laying out the zones of your kitchen. Try to plan your zones in order to place your sink in the middle of your Prep Zone and your Cleanup Zone.

Zone 2 – Cooking

The actual “cooking” faze of preparing a meal is going to involve the stove or oven, or maybe the microwave, depending on what you’re making. That’s why this zone should try to focus on the heating element and storage of pots, pans and utensils. Depending on your kitchen layout, it is easy to find storage near the stove and oven. Baking sheets and baking dishes can be stored near the oven or the prep zone. One thing to remember is that staking baking sheets is not an efficient way to store them. It makes them difficult to find and reach because it seems that the baking sheet you’re looking for is always at the bottom of the stack! We found a great stand organizer for our baking sheets that holds them upright and allows us to easily choose the one we want.

As for your pots and pans, this is where I will tell you that it’s okay to break the rules. While keeping your pots and pans near the stove is a great option for some kitchens, it doesn’t work for every kitchen. If your stove is near the pantry, or if your kitchen has large cabinets around the stove, then the answer is to store them in the pantry or the large cabinets. However, if your pantry or other large storage cabinets are far from your stove, I still recommend storing them here. I will get into this more in section 3, but it is important to take advantage of your vertical space, even if it disrupts your storage zones. However, in most kitchens, your stove is close enough to the pantry or large cabinets to take advantage of their vertical space without disrupting the functional flow of the kitchen.

Zone 3 – Cleanup

Kitchen cleanup is a necessary function of any kitchen. Since virtually all clean up revolves around the sink, I think the cleanup zone should be placed at the sink. We keep our cleaning supplies such as soap, towels, dishwasher detergent, sponges, brushes, and trash bags underneath the sink and in the surrounding cabinets. It’s also important to find a logical place for your trashcan. Some households can even use more than one trash can if you have a large family. Try placing your trashcan near the sink or in a cabinet near the sink. I also like having my dishwasher right beside my sink. It makes it easy to load the dishwasher without leaving a trail of water on the floor.

2. Clear Countertops of Small Appliances, Ingredients and Utensils

It’s important to create space to store small countertop appliances when you are not using them. You can design areas on the countertop for appliances that you use daily, but remember that countertops are best kept clear in order to maximize the usable surface area of your kitchen for food preparation, cooking, and cleanup.

Your kitchen countertops should be reserved for essential items that you use daily. Countertops can also be a nice place to display decorative home decor that bings warmth and coziness to the kitchen. An appliance garage is also an option, if you are remodeling your kitchen or building from scratch. They are great for storing small appliances like blenders, food processors, kettles and toasters.

If you have an espresso machine or stand mixer, it may make sense to leave these items on the counter. For us, we leave our espresso machine on display because we enjoying making daily lattes and cappuccinos. It’s also a beautiful appliance to display and a conversation piece in our home. If you are an avid baker, then it may be worth leaving your stand mixer on display for ease of use. They are another aesthetically pleasing appliance that is heavy and may not make since to move. However, that doesn’t make sense for us because at best I bake twice a year, so I created a place for it to live in the pantry.

Design Tip: I think clear cupboards and and floating shelves in the kitchen are a great place to display nice looking dishes and glasses. You can also display decorative items to add a cozy aesthetic.

3. Utilize Vertical Space in Pantries and Cabinets

Vertical space is often forgotten about in the kitchen and is a great way to extend your kitchen’s storage capacity. One cabinet organization strategy is to add additional shelves to accommodate shorter items such as bowls, plates, tumblers, and mugs. It’s even possible to turn cupboards into drawers by adding deep, sliding shelves to maximize storage. I love our plate stacking system. It fits into a deep drawer to stack dishes in a compacted footprint.

Also, we have started hanging our pots in pans in our pantry wall. This gets them out of the cabinets and takes advantage of the vertical wall space that wasn’t being used to its full potential. It’s much easier chose which pot or pan you want when you don’t have to dig through the whole stack! They are all displayed in the pantry for easy use but are hidden from view when the door is closed. We used pegboard and simple metal hooks to create an effortless hanging system. You can also buy a hanging system like this from Amazon, if you prefer. If your pantry is near the stove, then I recommend storing them in the pantry, but if the pantry is far away, then it’s usually more efficient to designate space in a lower cabinet near the stove for your cookware.

We also use a tiered spice display that allows us to easily see which spice we are trying to grab. Other options are spinning spice racks or spice drawer organizers. They are great options for easy access to your favorite spices. We also found a place in the pantry for our spice rack, but they work nicely in a cabinet or drawer as well.

4. Add Drawer Dividers and Organizer for Efficiency

Using dividers and organization systems inside drawers is a great way to sort cooking utensils, cutlery, small gadgets, and supplies. The organizers make things easier to find and easier to put back after a wash. Target, Amazon and Wayfair all have great drawer organization systems. With so many options for organizers, it is easy to find a collection of systems that allow you to best categorize and organize all your flatware and kitchen gadgets.

I also use organizers in my refrigerator to store canned beverages and bottles. These organization systems allow you to stack cans and bottles to maximize the unused vertical space in the fridge. In our house hold space in the fridge is always at a premium.

5. Group Similar Items Together for Easy Access and Inventory Tracking

This one is simple but affective. By placing similar items together, it allows you to easily find the utensil or ingredient that you are looking for and to easily put away clean dishes because the location is routine.

We have a specific place we keep canned goods in the pantry and in the cellar in order to take inventory and make sure we are using the oldest ingredients first and replacing with new. Our system is to put new canned goods in the cellar and bring the older canned goods to the pantry to ensure that they are eaten before they go bad.

It’s also nice to keeping ingredients in the same place in the pantry to know exactly what you have. For example, when I do bake, although it is rare, I like to be able to know where all my baking ingredients are. That way before I head to the store, I can determine if I have enough flower, sugar, or baking powder that I need.

6. Use Airtight Containers with Labels for Food Storage

I LOVE labels. Labels are a fantastic way to see what is where without having to keep original packaging. I put my flour, sugar, cornmeal, grits, cereals, nuts, dried fruit, and most other dry ingredients in clear containers in my pantry and I love to easily see my labels. I need to make sure I grabbed the Honey Nut Cheerios and not the regular that my husband prefers. Make sure to get airtight containers to keep foods fresh.

7. Be Sure to Declutter Regularly

Lastly, be sure to declutter regularly. It is so easy to accumulate things over time, especially if you don’t take time to sort unused items and donate or give away unused appliances. I like to periodically go through my kitchen and pair down. We recently got rid of an old coffee maker that we stopped using after we got an espresso machine. It is also important to go through your pantry and refrigerator and throw out old food. You don’t want to accident eat something that has spoiled because you haven’t taken an inventory.

Be sure to properly dispose of expired food, broken items, unused items. Donate usable items to charities or shelters, or you can sell seldomly used appliances online such as stand mixers, coffee makers, kettles, food processors and blenders. Be sure to donate to charities that put your donations to good use for those in need!

Conclusion

Using These 7 top kitchen organization strategies to help you get organized will keep you kitchen looking great and running smoothly. It takes some time to rearrange and organize your kitchen, but after you get things in place these tips will help you keep your kitchen running cleanly, orderly and efficiently.