MY TIPS FOR ORGANIZING YOUR KITCHEN CABINETS AND DRAWERS

We recently worked with Meredith of the Westport, CT-based organizing service House of Prim to maximize our kitchen cabinet space and organize kitchen drawers (and our pantry which you can see here!) and I’m excited to share the before and afters with you today!

It was such an eye-opening experience for me to work with a professional organizer for the first time as I’m always drawn to organizing content online and love the idea of living with super streamlined systems, but I find the process of creating them myself pretty daunting and the results have rarely been long-lasting. Having two objective people come evaluate our kitchen storage capabilities and take out literally every single pot, pan, and utensil and create categories of items before creating new systems to put everything back in its place made a big difference and I’m genuinely excited to maintain the systems they put in place going forward!

How To Organize Your Kitchen Cabinets And Drawers

REASONS TO HIRE A PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZER

how to organize kitchen cabinets and drawers

This was my first time working with a professional organizer and I learned a lot from the experience. First, truly thorough organizing takes time and the best approach is to empty the contents of your kitchen cabinets and drawers completely and donate any duplicates or items you no longer use before you put anything back in. This process of taking stock of everything you own — from cookie sheets and food storage containers to everyday dishes and kids’ cups — isn’t something that can be completely in a spare hour or two while kids are napping, so it was a huge help to have Meredith and Bruna spend an entire day on it!

Second, I realized that my previous systems of large bins and baskets could be significantly improved with lots more smaller bins and dividers that truly created a place for every item from bottle openers in our utensil drawer to pens in our junk drawer. A professional organizer can really help you see your storage options in a new light and then optimize each cabinet and drawer for maximum functionality without compromising your overall aesthetic. Long story short, I learned effective organizing takes much more time — and more product — than I’ve allowed for in my own past attempts which is something I’ll keep in mind going forward!

I was honestly feeling a little guilty going into this project because home organization is something I could technically do myself, but when I saw how efficiently Meredith and her team worked together as well as the end result, I admitted to myself that hiring a professional organizer really made the difference between actually getting our kitchen cabinets organized once and for all and me just talking about it and never getting around to executing it for the next several years. So if you’ve been on the fence about hiring someone to help you around your house (whether it’s with organizing, painting, landscaping, anything!), I hope you’ll take this post as a sign that it’s okay to outsource and that there are phases of life when seeking others’ help and expertise can actually mean the difference between a beautiful finished product and next to no progress at all! 

HOW TO ORGANIZE KITCHEN CABINETS

Having organized kitchen cabinets and drawers means everything you need is in easy reach whether you’re cooking family dinner or packing a lunchbox. And having designated drawers for kids’ stuff like silicone bibs, plastic utensils, and sippy cups makes it more likely they’ll actually help themselves over time! The ladies behind House of Prim were kind enough to share some of their go-to products for kitchen cabinet organization and I hope their recommendations will help make the task of organizing your kitchen cabinets less daunting for some of you as well! 

how to organize pots and pans

how to organize cutting boards

1. How to organize pots and pans.

Kicking things off with one of my new favorite kitchen organization ideas! We were previously using two drawers and the cabinet under our stove to corral all our pots, pans, and various lids and it was never easy to find what you were looking for when you needed it, plus we were wasting valuable kitchen space on just one category. This metal rack for organizing pans (and this one for cutting boards!) is the best way to create easy access under the stove, and this pot lid organizer takes up only half of one cabinet shelf (we had previously installed these pull-out cabinet drawers to make the lower cabinets function more like drawers). If you have a small kitchen, this is a great first step you can execute with any amount of space and you could easily use the other half of your cabinet for mixing bowls or even small appliances.

adhesive acrylic bins for cabinet doors | How To Organize Kitchen Cabinets & Drawers

2. How to organize under the stove and under the kitchen sink.

These adhesive acrylic bins that adhere to the back of cabinet doors are an amazing way to increase storage space in your kitchen. Meredith and her team added one of these clear containers underneath our stove to house oven mitts (which we’d previously been stuffing at the top of one of the kitchen utensil drawers!) and the same one underneath our sink for dishwasher pods. 

HOW TO ORGANIZE KITCHEN DRAWERS

We prioritized adding deep drawers as opposed to shelved cabinets when we renovated our kitchen a couple years ago and I highly recommend maximum drawer space if you’re embarking on a kitchen renovation! We have very limited upper cabinets in this kitchen so it was important to make the most of our drawer space in the lower cabinets. Here’s how the House of Prim team organized our kitchen drawers!

how to organize kitchen drawers before and after

Our kitchen drawers before…

how to organize kitchen drawers with bamboo drawer dividers

how to organize kitchen drawers with measuring cups

How To Organize Kitchen Cabinets & Drawers with bamboo bins

How To Organize Kitchen Cabinets & Drawers with utensils

…and our kitchen drawers after!

1. Use bamboo drawer dividers and drawer organizers for cooking utensils, flatware, and serving pieces.

You can see in the before photo above that our previous set-up left way too much open space for pieces to roll around, whereas appropriately spaced bamboo drawer dividers (also available in a taller height for deeper drawers) create a designated place for kitchen utensils to be grouped in like categories (kitchen tongs, metal whisks, silicone spatulas, etc.). This bamboo silverware tray is perfect for everyday flatware and these bamboo drawer organizers work well for smaller pieces like cheese knives, measuring cups and spoons, meat thermometers, etc.

how to organize your spice drawer

2. How to organize your spice drawer.

I’d previously had a hard time finding a low spice drawer insert that would fit in our shallow top drawer, but of course Meredith had a perfect recommendation! This wooden spice drawer insert, these glass spice jars, and these gorgeous labels took our spice drawer to the next level and even freed up space in the back of the drawer for the sweetener Will uses in his iced coffee. It makes me so happy to open up this very aesthetically pleasing drawer!

how to organize kitchen drawers before and after

Our junk drawer and ziploc bag / aluminum foil drawer before…

how to organize kitchen drawers with ziploc bags

How To Organize Kitchen Cabinets & Drawers

how to organize kitchen drawers with aluminum foil

…and our ziploc bag and aluminum foil drawers after!

3. How to organize ziploc bags and aluminum foil, plastic wrap, etc.

I fell in love with these wooden boxes for ziploc bags, which we use to pack Teddy’s snack for school. This is will now forever be one of my favorite ways to instantly upgrade a kitchen drawer! Meredith and her team also added these bamboo wrap docks for smaller rolls of aluminum foil and plastic wrap and more bamboo drawer dividers for oversized rolls in the drawer below. Quite the improvement from the before photo, no?!

how to organize your kitchen junk drawer

4. How to organize your junk drawer.

Every kitchen has a junk drawer… or if yours doesn’t, will you tell me your secret? Our junk drawer houses pens and pencils, scissors and tape, matchboxes, extra chargers, a lint roller, and now this beautiful acrylic battery organizer. You might have noticed Meredith and her team swapped our small junk drawer for a larger one on the other side of the kitchen and brought in this acrylic drawer organizer starter kit as a great way to maximize the newfound storage space. 

How To Organize Kitchen Cabinets & Drawers before and after

Our kids’ drawer before…

how to organize kids drawer in kitchen

how to organize bottles and sippy cups in kitchen

how to organize baby bottles in kitchen drawer

…and our kids’ drawers after!

5. How to organize baby bottles, sippy cups, etc.

The kids’ drawer was previously a giant mess where everyday essentials like plates and bowls lived alongside rarely used novelties like popsicle molds and seasonal items (which found a new home in the pantry which you can see here!). Meredith carved out space to give both Teddy and Peter their own kitchen drawers, giving Teddy access to his own utensils, cups, etc. and using multiple sizes of these iDesign acrylic bins with these Home Edit bin organizers to create homes for Peter’s bottles, bibs, and snack cups. We added the same acrylic bins under our kitchen sink to organize cleaning supplies and it makes it so easy to see everything we have at a glance!

A PRETTY AND PRACTICAL SOLUTION FOR ORGANIZING YOUR KITCHEN COUNTERS

clear olive oil dispenser

clear olive oil dispenser on bamboo lazy susan

In a perfect world, our kitchen counters would be clear of all small appliances and home to nothing more than a vase of fresh flowers, but sadly that’s proven unrealistic in a galley style kitchen with four adults and two small children. We use our pantry for food storage and to house our microwave, but we still have a coffee maker and toaster oven that live on the kitchen counter along the back wall and I wanted to find a way to store our most used cooking essentials that’s both pretty and practical. Meredith found these clear bottles to decant olive oil and these pretty salt and pepper grinders and placed them all on a bamboo lazy susan next to our stove.

Meredith found these clear bottles to decant olive oil and these pretty salt and pepper grinders and placed them all on a bamboo lazy susan next to our stove.

How To Organize Your Kitchen Cabinets And Drawers

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Okay I think I’ve written just about everything I can think to say about organizing kitchen cabinets and drawers, but overall we’re so happy with how it turned out and grateful to the team at House of Prim for translating our goals for the space into a fully functional and beautiful reality. (Highly recommend them if you’re local and stumped on organizing a particular area of your home!) I hope this post was helpful to some of you and feel free to check out our newly organized pantry here!

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*photos by Julia Dags