We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.
You probably have been following the same organizational framework for your kitchen cabinets for ages, and let’s admit it, from time to time, we all forget which cabinet has the exact stuff we’re looking for.
One fine day you might be in the mood for baking a chocolate cake, only to find that mites have been eating away at your cocoa powder. And you’ll realize very late that your vanilla essence has expired too. We’ve all been there!
Clearly, our kitchen cabinets need to be reorganized every couple of months to get rid of things we don’t use, and most importantly because they call for a lot of organization. A messy kitchen cabinet is an absolute nightmare nobody wants to witness—fixing it will take a lot of time too.
Here are 50 kitchen cabinet organization ideas we’ve listed for you, so you don’t have to do the hard work.
50 Genius Ways To Organize Kitchen Cabinets
1. Create a New Layout Plan
Open all the cabinets, sit down, and create a new layout plan. It must be apparent to you at this point that your current kitchen needs are different from how you organized the cabinet when you first moved in.
Take a pad and pen, and write down categories—from the stuff you use the most to the ones you use the least. Arrange things accordingly in a hierarchical manner, or in whatever way you’d really like. This first step is like laying the foundation stone to organizing your kitchen cabinets. Do this right, and the rest will follow.
Now that you have created a blueprint of how each component/category needs to be rearranged, let’s narrow it down.
2. Stack Cookie Sheets And Baking Trays Vertically
Rearrange all your cookie sheets and baking trays and store them vertically. FILE them. This will make pulling them out hassle-free, and you will be able to see which is which more properly. You can make use of tension rods to enhance storage.
3. Use Turntables Or ‘Lazy Susans’
Turntables are sooo handy! Just arrange stuff and turn them to reach the ones you need! They are the best way of making any kitchen space functional, because they don’t take up a lot of space, and allow maximum storage capacity at the same time.
You will never regret investing in these, so get some ASAP and let them work their magic. You can store a whole bunch of spices, oil bottles, or dry kitchen supplies like flour, sugar, etc. on them; or improvise as required.
4. Drawer Dividers
One thing is clear—a drawer cannot provide as much storage area as one which has been further divided into parts/smaller spaces.
Drawers have a lot of storage capacity and using dividers will help you separate areas for storing different kinds of stuff. They will also help you keep everything organized way better than just a regular drawer without partitions. Use them WHEREVER you can, and thank us later.
5. Stick On Chalkboards
You can transform a plain bland cabinet door into a To-Do List Planner by using a stick-on chalkboard and writing on it what needs to be taken care of throughout the day.
Tip: This hack will obviously work better if you stick it on the cabinet door of the MOST used cabinet.
6. Use Shelf Risers In Your Cabinets
Adding shelf risers in your cabinets will let you use up space effectively. This way, you’ll be able to put more items inside them too.
7.Make Use Of The Sides Of Cabinets
The cabinets that are on the extreme ends have free space on their sides—you can add hooks or rods to enhance storage space and use the sides to hang spoons, graters, knives. Almost anything and everything can be hanged here.
8. Use The Space Above The Cabinets
The cabinets at the top have a lot of free space that can be used to store multiple things. You can use it to store things that are heavy and not used often—pots, cookbooks or that huge rice cooker your mother-in-law gifted you for Christmas.
9. Add Pull Out Shelves To Your Cabinets
You can increase storage space by adding pull out shelves to your kitchen cabinets. Everything will be easily accessible this way too.
10. Tray Door Storage Set
Attach a two tray door storage set to the inside of your cabinet doors to maximize storage space. You can do this for the cabinet under your sink and store all the kitchen cleaning products here.
11. Stick And Clip Cabinet Organizer
Do you have a hard time finding all those tiny spice bottles and end up knocking them down? Buy cheap little stick-on organizers and stick them on the cabinet doors to store spices! You’ll be able to find your spices quickly and access them easily too.
12. Attach Key Rails Inside The Cabinets
You can use key rails inside your cabinets, especially the cabinet with baking materials to hang measurement spoons. This will help you make good use of the cabinet space and store all the baking essentials in one place. Hang them way at the back of the cabinet for maximum efficiency.
13. Use Expandable Shelves For Cabinets With No Shelves
If you have cabinets that do not have shelves attached, don’t bother installing them. Instead, get these expandable cabinet shelves from Bed Bath & Beyond—you can place your pans, pots, or even cutting boards on these, and they will provide more storage space than shelves.
14. Under The Sink Pull-Out Organizer
The space below the sink is one of the most overlooked spaces in the kitchen and can have amazing storage capacity if given a chance. You can invest in a pull-out organizer and install it below the sink to store your cleaning products. This is a really amazing invention!
15. Use T-shaped Moldings For Stemware
Remember how all the stemware is hanging upside down in bars? This way they don’t get caked with dust and are within reach. So, install T-shaped moldings in your cabinets to store your stemware—this way the remaining space can be used for storing other items.
16. Make Use Of Glass Jars
One way to make sure you get what you’re looking for when you reach for the cabinets is putting it all in glass jars. You’ll get what you want just by looking inside the cabinet; this will save space AND time.
17. Label All Your Containers
If you don’t have the time to go and buy glass jars and really just want to make do with the ones you already have at home, you can use labels instead. Get cheap stick-on labels from the store and label EVERYTHING. This will prove to be really helpful later.
18. Hang Cleaning Sprays with a Tension Rod
You can use tension rods to hang your cleaning spray bottlers from their trigger levers. This is an efficient way of using up whatever space you have.
19. Hang Cleaning Sprays with Towel Bars
You can even use your over-the-cabinet towel bar to store cleaning sprays if you do not wish to buy tension rods. Although the rod will be shorter than tension rods, it can handle more weight.
20. Store Mixer Attachments in Your Mixing Bowl
Mixer attachments cover up a lot of space as they are bulky. So, store them inside the mixing bowl—layer the bowl with a clean towel and put them in. You can even cover them to prevent them from getting dirty.
21. Hang Snack Bags With Pant Hangers
If you have wire shelves, make use of pant hangers to hang snack bags. Roll up their tops and attach them to the clips; this will prevent the chips from getting crushed.
22. Pull-Out Rolling Shelves To Store Utensils
Sometimes you forget where you kept your favorite pot and after hours of searching, you’ll find it in the back of some cabinet, all covered in dust. To prevent such instances, buy and install pull out rolling shelves. They’ll make it easier to take out utensils that are kept at the back of the cabinet. They basically work like drawers.
23. Store Cupcake Liners In A Mason Jar
Cupcake liners don’t take up a lot of space but they need to be stored properly. Use a mason jar and put all your cupcake liners in it—you can just take the jar out of the cabinet whenever you need them.
24. Use Baskets
Baskets can be kept inside your kitchen cabinets to store anything and everything. Keep similar things in one basket—for example, you can store all the baking ingredients and tools in one basket. Just pull out the basket whenever you need something.
25. Hang Mitts And Hot Pads Using Hooks
Make use of stick-on hooks to hang oven mitts or hot pads on your cabinet doors. Attach the hooks in an easily accessible place—for example, the cabinet next to the stovetop or oven.
26. Use Hooks To Hang Mugs UNDER The Shelves
Install a hook hanging holder on your cabinet shelves to hang up mugs, spoons, or other items. This will let you use up that free space and also act as a drying rack for your mugs right after you wash them.
27. Use A Pegboard As A Pantry
If you don’t have a large pantry or a drawer free of space to store pantry items, improvise by turning a pegboard into your very own pantry! This way you will save up cabinet space you were otherwise going to use for the pantry items.
28. Store Similar Items Together
Storing similar products together is the oldest trick in the book since it makes finding stuff you want easier. Keep staples with staples, snacks with snacks, pasta with pasta, etc. You can assign each cabinet to similar/related items.
29. Go Basic If You Have Open Shelving
Go for a neutral look if you have open shelving—glass or white-colored dishware will look aesthetically pleasing. They are easy on the eyes as opposed to a mix and match of a hundred contrasting colors on shelves. You can also arrange the dishware colorwise on each shelf.
30. Use Shelf-Risers
Shelf risers will double your vertical storage space and allow you to store extra things without having to stack up a lot of items. They are pretty inexpensive too.
31. Use Mailing Tubes To Store Silicone Mats
Store your baking mats easily by rolling them up in parchment paper and inserting them through a mailing tube. This way, they won’t take up a lot of space in your cabinets.
32. Magnetic Knife Strip On The Sides
Attach a magnetic knife strip on the side of your kitchen cabinets to keep your most-used knives within reach when you’re cooking. This will enhance your decor as well as free up space inside your cabinets. You can also install them inside the cabinets on the backside to store blender blades.
33. Tilted Tip-Out Tray
Install a tip out tray on that fake drawer below the sink and use it store liquid soap and sponges. Now the sides of your sink will not be littered with sponges and soaps. Hide them from view whenever you’re done cleaning!
34. Toe Kick Drawers
This hack will call for some involvement on your part but will prove to be really helpful because it’ll use the space under your cabinet that is usually overlooked. Learn how to do it yourself like a pro here.
35. Organize The Cabinet According To Your Needs
Rearrange your cabinet shelves according to your current needs. This is something that we usually miss while changing our kitchen cabinet organization. Make sure you donate or throw away anything you don’t need to free up space.
36. If You Have Open Shelves, Leave Space Between Items
No one wants overcrowded open shelves with items always on the brink of falling down just due to shifting. To avoid this from happening, leave ample space on your open shelves and refrain from storing a lot of things on them.
37. Use Saucers For Messy Items
If you have items that tend to create a mess and drip like ketchup bottles, store them on a saucer so that the cabinet shelves aren’t ruined in the process.
38. Use A Tension Rod To Store Spices
I think we all should just probably buy these tension rods in bulks. They are so useful! You can store small spice bottles on top of these tension rods with support from the cabinet’s back wall.
39. Go Through All Of Your Food Storage Containers
In order to organize your cabinet better, take out all your food containers, and do a proper analysis. Which one is too small or too big for the stuff they carry? Divide and assign different containers to food items that fit them best. There might even be some useless ones you have to throw out.
40. Hang up Garbage Bag Rolls
Hang up garbage bag rolls like toilet paper below the sink where there is a lot of free space. This will allow easy use and access both. You can do this with the help of brackets and dowels.
41. Attach Wire Organizers To The Cabinet Doors
Make use of your file holders by installing them inside your cabinet doors. Put in stuff like cutting boards, aluminum foil rolls, and baking mats. Believe me, you’ll free up a lot of space this way!
42. Arrange Items By Height
Arranging items in the cabinet by height will not only make locating stuff easier, but it will also make your cabinets look orderly. It’s the simple things that count!
43. Install a Pull Spice Rack
Instead of spending a lot of time searching for the right spices every time you cook, install a pull-out spice rack so that you can easily see which one you need and take it out.
44. Over The Cabinet Towel Bar
Attach an over the cabinet towel bar to your cabinet door so that you can easily hang your kitchen towels there! You will use up neglected space and also make sure your kitchen looks neater.
45. Organize Medicines in Your Cabinet
If you are one of those families who keep medicines in the kitchen cabinets, arrange them by their use—labels are the way to go! You can even assign one shelf for generic medicines like cough and cold syrups, antibiotics, etc. The first aid kit can go on this shelf as well.
46. Cookbook Shelves
Add spice shelves to the sides of your kitchen cabinets to store cookbooks efficiently. You can even arrange them vertically and maximize storage if you have a lot of cookbooks.
47. Attach Magnets To Lids
The surface below the kitchen cabinets has a lot of potential in terms of storage capacity. You’ll just need a few basic things like a metal bracket, strong magnets, rubber cement, and others. Science, bitch!
48. Rolling Carts
Guess what is better than a cabinet space? A MOVING cabinet space! Buy a rolling cart to store essentials and drag it around the kitchen and wherever else you want! You can put in stuff that you use the most throughout the day like knives, pans, certain spices, sauces, etc. This will free up a lot of cabinet space.
You can also use it to bring meals to the table, and dirty dishes back to the sink.
49. Use Stackable Containers
Put pantry staples like sugar, salt, pasta, rice etc. in matching container boxes with a stackable design. As they are transparent, the contents will be easily visible to you and their stackable property will let you use up the vertical space efficiently.
50. DIY Pot Lid Holders
Hooks to the rescue again! Attach command hooks to cabinet doors—and give birth to your very own pot lid hangers! This way, the pots, and their lids will be in one place, and you will find it easier to sort through them and get to the one you need at that very moment to cook. You will also be able to store much more utensils this way.
We have listed some of the best hacks here, and are very much certain that one or the other will surely come to your rescue. So go take a look at your cabinets that are in dire need of organization!