Transform Your Kitchen with a Detailed Storage Plan
A messy kitchen is a nightmare for someone who enjoys cooking. Yet, you should strive for more than creating a magazine-worthy room. How you organize your kitchen should be practical, too.
Fancy transforming your kitchen with a detailed storage plan?
Imagine everything having its own place, where grabbing the essentials is a cinch and cleaning up takes little time. Following these tips to keep your kitchen organized will transform how you use your kitchen
A detailed storage plan can help you take your kitchen from a state of disarray to a productive and inspiring space.
Why Do You Need an Organized Kitchen?
The kitchen is one of the most important rooms in your house — somewhere you prepare your meals, eat, gather with loved ones, and sometimes work. For this reason, you want it to be as functional as it is aesthetically pleasing.
Organizing the kitchen area can improve your daily life in the following ways:
- Saves you time in finding essential items
- Streamlines cooking and cleaning
- Makes meal preparation more pleasant
- Encourages healthier eating habits
- Decreases food waste by knowing what you already have
- Reduces the risk of injury or fire in a clutter-free environment
Ideally, the kitchen should support everyday routines, improving mental clarity and well-being. This is especially true since you likely spend much of your day-to-day in the space.
Creating a Detailed Kitchen Storage Plan
A well-organized, functional kitchen is a chef’s dream. However, you need to create a detailed storage plan before you start. Here’s how.
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Understanding the Space
It’s important to assess the kitchen’s shape and size to understand how much square footage you’re working with. With the average home size being 1,500 to 4,000 square feet, your kitchen is likely around 13 feet by 13 feet. Of course, the larger the home, the more square footage you’ll have.
Those living in apartments have much less space to work with. The average studio apartment is around 514 square feet, which leaves only a few cabinets in the kitchen to store items for cooking and serving. Most apartment kitchens are laid out in a U-shape, L-shape, G-shape, galley or one-wall. With less room available, renters must utilize every nook and cranny for storage.
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Identify potential storage areas, including the cabinets, drawers, pantries, countertops, and corners. You’ll also want to measure the amount of room you have within each space.
Finally, consider how your household uses the kitchen. Do you spend a lot of your time cooking? Does anyone sit at the island or kitchen table to work, pay bills, or do homework?
Inventory Everything
The second part of your detailed storage plan is inventorying everything in your kitchen. Remove all the cookware, utensils, flatware, drinkware, and pantry staples for a clearer picture of what’s there.
Then, categorize similar items, assess whether you still need them, and plan to donate them or throw them out. Make an exhaustive list of anything left over to keep you on track when putting belongings away in their proper place.
For instance, most renters need at least two saucepans with lids, a set of skillets, and two casserole dishes. Likewise, it’s good to keep a set of mixing bowls you can stack inside each other to save room. Naturally, homeowners may have room for more varieties.
Develop a Storage System
Decide which items are frequently utilized and must be most accessible. Based on their use and size, you should have a good idea of where they would be best stored.
Drawing a map of the kitchen can help you organize your inventory list and allow you to visualize the space better. Don’t forget about countertops — this is often a great place to store spatulas, a knife set, a coffee pot, and salt and pepper shakers.
What Storage Products Can Help You Get Organized?
Numerous storage products are available to help you organize your kitchen. For example, glass jars can hold messy ingredients like flour and sugar so they don’t seep out of their original packaging. These are also aesthetically pleasing when you open the pantry.
Other essential kitchen storage solutions include:
- Dividers and trays for cabinets and drawers.
- Open shelving, bins, and canisters for dry food items.
- Knife blocks and cookware holder for the countertop.
- Paper towel holder under an upper cabinet or on cabinet door below the sink.
- Lazy Susans and Spice Racks.
- Shelf risers.
- Over-the-door organizers.
Of course, you might also consider custom-built storage solutions inside the cabinets, such as pull-out shelves — ideal for heavy pots and pans. Many people also designate a lower cabinet for the trash and recycling cans.
Related article: 10 Things People With Clean Kitchens Do Daily
Putting Your Kitchen Storage Plan Into Action
It’s great to have a detailed storage plan for the kitchen, but now you must implement it. The following tips will help you create a functional space for cooking and eating.
1) Start With One Area
Organizing the kitchen can become overwhelming for anyone. After all, there’s a lot of space to cover with plenty of items to put away.
The best approach to enacting your kitchen storage plan is to focus on one area at a time, such as the pantry, refrigerator, drawers, or cabinets. Choose a specific day and time with a plan to tackle one project. If you have more time and energy afterward to start another area of the kitchen, you can do so.
2) Declutter
Although you may have gotten rid of a lot when you created your inventory list, putting things away is prime time to ensure you still want to keep what you have. Once again, assess every item you own, from pots and pans to pantry essentials. As long as something is in decent, working condition — like the electric yogurt maker you used once — you can donate it.
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After decluttering and storing your kitchen belongings, experts recommend cleaning up again regularly to avoid building up more stuff. For example, professional organizer Jennifer Jarrett suggests decluttering the countertops and refrigerator weekly, while the pantry should get a once-over every month.
3) Prioritize and Group Items
Prioritizing and grouping items according to how often you use them optimizes your kitchen’s functionality. The last thing you want is to search for a spatula when food is in the skillet or carry a load of clean dishes to the furthest upper cabinets from the dishwasher.
Look at the drawing you made of your kitchen and determine where you’ve placed high-priority items. Will they be easy to grab? Likewise, you should group similar items — such as baking supplies and cooking utensils — to avoid losing them.
4) Utilize Storage Solutions
Invest in quality storage and organization solutions from the above product list to maximize space in your kitchen. Drawer dividers for utensils and shelf risers for spices will make your life easier, allowing you to see what ingredients you have on hand in a tiered fashion.
Vertical storage is also recommended wherever possible. Adding shelves or hanging organizers over doors gives you even more room to put things.
Related article: 7 Clever Pantry Organization Ideas to Declutter Your Kitchen Space
5) Label Everything
A label maker is worth its price in gold when organizing your kitchen, saving you time and frustration in finding what you need. Although you don’t have to label everything, it could come in handy for food containers, jars, or drawers.
Consider labeling the shelves and bins in the pantry to locate dry ingredients quickly. Likewise, you could label freezer items with the freeze date.
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Of course, ensure labels are clear, concise, and legible, with a consistent font and color. Be sure to use durable, moisture-resistant materials as well.
6) Rearrange Accordingly
Live with your arrangement to see if it provides adequate function while you cook, eat, and congregate. Don’t be afraid to move things around until you find a comfortable setup.
Maintenance is also crucial to your detailed kitchen storage plan. While you declutter occasionally to remain organized, remember to update worn-out storage solutions to ensure they still meet your needs.
A Well-Functioning Kitchen Is an Organized One
Investing in your kitchen’s storage and organization is a lifesaver, simplifying daily activities. Walking into a clean, functional area to prep meals and dine will also make you happier. Take the time to rearrange your kitchen to meet your needs and maximize the space.
Article written by: Evelyn Long is an interior design writer who is passionate about helping homeowners keep their homes tidy and decluttered. She is the editor-in-chief of Renovated Magazine, where she writes about current interior design and organization trends.
