Archives for 2009

I love organizing products. Whenever we go to Wal-Mart or Target, my husband does his best to keep me away from the organizing section! Below are some great organizing tools that you may like for your kitchen cabinets.

UNDER SHELF WRAP RACK – I actually keep my wraps and baggies in a drawer, but I used to keep them in a cabinet and probably still would if I had one of these. It makes it easy to grab what you need and keep all the stuff contained in an area without having to worry about stuff falling out.

Copco 2555-9424 2-Tier 12-Inch Non-Skid Cabinet Turntable – I have one of these for my spacies. I use the bottom shelf for cooking spices and the top shelf for baking spices. It makes everything easy to find and access.

Tagco Spice Stack – White – If I didn’t have a turn table like the one above, I’d probably store my spices is a rack like this. It’s very compact and makes everything look neat and orderly.

Double Chrome Helper Shelf – I’ve been thinking of purchasing one of these. I can think of a lot ways that I could possibly use this. This is a great tool that helps you to take advantage of all the vertical space in your cabinets. And you can use them for food, dishes, or even for bathroom storage.

Cabinet Door Lid Rack – One cabinet that I want to work on in the future is the one where I keep pots and pans. And I love the idea of a rack to keep all the lids together. This particular one mounts one the door of your cabinet, but they make other kinds as well.

Door mount 8 Shelf Pantry Rack – I had one of these in our old apartment. The amount of cabinet space in the kitchen was terrible. So I had one of these on the door, on the inside of the laundry room. It was perfect for cereal, pasta, and other boxed items. And if you’re lacking in space, you may want to try this.

Chrome Pantry Can Goods Rack – This is another item I’d kind of like to try. We have a pretty good amount of cabinet space, but I probably don’t store as much as I could because I’m more concerned with it being organized. (All the green beans are in a row. All the corns are in a row. And I do stack everything, so even though it’s organized, it still looks crammed.) This could be a helpful tool make everything look a little more orderly.

-Jerri

My goal for this round-up was to take the space I have and re-arrange items within the space so that the space can be used to contain more items. So while, my tranformations aren’t very dramatic, I did at least accomplish this goal.

Also, check out my post on Cabinet Organizing Tips and Kitchen Organizing tools. Now onto my project:

Cabinet Above Stove: Before

After: I removed a few items from this cabinet and placed them in drawers or in the “spice cabinet” which you’ll see in another photo. And meanwhile, I took the baking mixes I had in my spice cabinet and placed them in this cabinet. The result: A neatly arranged cabinet of baking mixes and breakfast items.

Spice Cabinet: Before

After: I did some swapping around with some of the items from the cabinet above the stove. Result: The bottom shelf of this cabinet is a lot neater.

Bowls, Etc. Cabinet: Before

After: In this cabinet, I have my storage containers, baking dishes, bowls, and a few serving dishes. The only thing I did here was a little re-stacking, and I took some items from another cabinet and placed them in here. The Result: More items in one place, and I now have a little space to work with on the top.


Food Cabinet #1: Before. I went through a process with this one. I have a small pantry, so I store some of our food in this cabinet, as well as vitamins and prescription meds that my husband takes each day. And for the round-up project, I decided to clear some of this space so that more food could be stored here.

In this pic, as you can see, the top left hand shelf has been cleared of the bakeware that was there, and it now contains food. Also, the can goods that were on the bottom right have now been contained on the left hand side.
Later in the month, I decided to store some snacks in this cabinet, and bakeware on the middle right hand shelf got moved (to the cabinet with all the bowls and stuff). And come to think of it, this third picture looks worse than the original picture.

And finally I took the snacks out of their boxes and plaed them in the little white basket. I also managed to do a fix my husband’s medicine shelf with a little basket. The Result: A much neater cabinet with a little extra space to spare!

-Jerri

This week I’ll be posting my Cabinet/Closet entry for the Organizing Round-Up. Here are a few general tips for organizing your cabinets:

• Go through each cabinet and purge it of items you no longer need. If you haven’t used something in over a year, this may be a good time to rid yourself of it. (Place everything in a yard sale box, or give it away to a friend or family member.)
• Match up all your containers with lids. Throw away anything that doesn’t have a mate.
• Create a system for organizing your plastic containers and stick to your system. (I use gladware containers because they’re cheap to replace, and I can easily make 2 or 3 stacks of them in my cabinet.
• Place items that you use most often on lower shelves and in the front of cabinets so that they are easily accessible.
• Place items that you use less often on high shelves, in the back of cabinets, and in places that are harder to reach or get to.
• Group similar items together.
• Stack items to ensure that you take advantage of all the vertical space you have available.
• Place items in a logical location. (Example: dishes near the dishwasher/sink, pots & pans near the stove, etc.)
• Define the space & set parameters. (Example: This shelf will be used for mixing bowls. And this shelf will be for glasses and coffee cups. Etc.)
• Use shelf dividers, baskets, and organizing tools to separate items, and use labels if necessary. (In an upcoming post, I’ll be featuring some great organizing tools for your cabinets.)

-Jerri