Recently, I moved into a new space. Up until my newest apartment, I’ve been lucky enough to have pretty big kitchens. They’ve had big refrigerators, lots of counter and workspace, and tons of room in the cabinets.
My current kitchen is a different story. I love our apartment. It has nice wood floors and is walking distance to basically everything I deem important – like the Metro and Ray’s Hellburger. However, the kitchen is a bit small.
Since spring is finally here and since I have lots of experience on the subject right now, I’d like to share with you my tips for small kitchen organization:
- Store frequently used items in easy-to-reach places or out in the open. Take for example, my magnetic knife strip. For $9 (Ikea), and a little craftsmanship, you can free up an entire drawer. My under-the-counter hooks (see photos below) are nothing more than these 3M stickies placed up underneath the cabinet.
- Keep things with their own kind. Pie plates go with cake pans and springform pans. Cooking utensils go in the same holder. Oils and vinegars hang out in the same cupboard. You get the picture.
- Find a storage solution for less used items that works for you and your space. My cake stands and champagne flutes are gorgeous. But honestly, why would I want to take up valuable cabinet space with them? Enter the “ginormous red piece of furniture” that Ryan and I bought and put together. It’s very tall, but is only 47″ wide…perfect for our little dining room. Here I keep everything that I don’t consider everyday.
- Consider organizing spices, sugars, flours, and small kitchen items like bag clips in see through containers that are labeled. This will give your cabinets a more organized feel, with everything in similar looking containers. Check back in a couple weeks for my post on the most important spices and how to organize them!
- Finally, get things off those counters! I’ve used some of my precious cabinet space for small appliances like my hand mixer, George Foreman, and toaster. It’s worth it to me to have a clean counter space to work on. The only things I leave out on my main workspace are items too heavy to move around such as the KitchenAid mixer and the coffee maker. Use items like under-the-counter paper towel holders and hooks.
I hope you enjoyed your tour through my new kitchen and picked up some tips on how to handle kitchen organization, no matter how big or small your space is. This will be the site where many new treats are dreamed up! As Tyler Florence once said on how to become a great cook, “All you really need are a few quality kitchen tools, a well-stocked pantry, a little counter space, and a few good cookbooks.”
