We’ve organized hundreds of kitchens over the years. These are the tips we find ourselves telling clients again and again:
Store your plates, bowls, cups and glasses in the cabinet near the dishwasher. This makes it easier to do the dishes and unload the dishwasher.
Store your food in the upper cabinets, not the lower cabinets. The lower cabinets are deeper than your upper cabinets, so any food that gets stored down runs the risk of getting lost and forgotten about. Reserve your lower cabinets for your larger cookware, appliances and pots and pans.
You don’t need to decant all of your food into matching jars and containers. Decanting food into jars is a large time commitment and requires a lot of effort after each trip to the grocery store. We find that merely organizing food into categories on the shelves is enough to create a tidy, orderly pantry. Think of each shelf as an aisle at the grocery store, and categorize your food accordingly.
Take full advantage of your adjustable shelves. If you see that you have 4+” of empty space between your shelves, consider getting another shelf cut installed to make the most of your cabinet. It’s really easy to take an existing shelf into Lowe’s to have them cut an identical match.
Stick to ONE product line of reusable leftover containers. This way, they will all nest together. Having two or more brands of leftover containers makes it that match harder to find the matching lid. We like to nest the empty containers together and line up the lids on their side in another container.
Get stackable plastic bins for you recycling. Place them in a corner in your kitchen, or maybe stacked under your counter or in the pantry. We find that 5 bins seems to be about the right amount for Portland families.
Set a limit to how many empty plastic bags and brown paper bags you keep. We recommend saving only as many brown paper bags as will fit into one empty paper bag. And only as many empty plastic bags as will fit into an old Kleenex box. Go ahead and recycle the bags that don’t fit.
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