Hit me with your best kitchen organization Tip.
I love my kitchen and oh how I love organization. Here is my favorite thing…….making kits. You probably all already do this but you haven’t given it a fancy name.
A kit is created when you put all the stuff that goes together in an easily accessible box or tray. Some examples:
Measuring kit – Why go back to the drawer 80 times to get a teaspoon while you’re making cookies? Just pull out the measuring kit, use what you need and put it back when you’re done.
Spice kit – same idea. Every spice does not fit in the cute little spice rack on your counter. For the others, label their tops and put them in a tray. You can pull it down while you’re cooking and keep everything organized.
Lid Kit – You get the pitcha.
Okay, now I wanna see yours. No freeloaders here. Tell me what you do to keep your kitchen in line.
I…uh…
I got nothin.
okay…
wait…
I can come up with SOMETHING. I think.
(btw, I am loving LOVING LOVE-ING the measuring kit idea)
We have a drawer, an entire drawer, just for bringing cheese to room temperature.
NOT WHAT YOU HAD IN MIND EH?
okay.
big cooking utensils are in a jug on the shelf above the stove for easy access?
not very original — will keep thinking.
The spice idea is great too – my mom kept her spices in a container like that but somehow no one ever thought to mark the tops, so we would pick them up one by one, every time, to read the labels, looking for the right one. Now I’m smacking myself in the forehead. duh!
You are just too good… I am getting ready to sign up to sell Pampered Chef, and I too truly love kitchen organization. Being good at it, though, is another story. My favorite organization tip comes my friend LeAnna- her mom sewed little elastic loops on all my kitchen towels and I installed hooks in several strategic places in my kitchen. I love them!!! Now if only I had clean dish towels! Thanks for visiting my site. I hope its not too forward to say I’m in love with you as well. Seems we have much in common- like a life so good you have to complain about things like … like … I’m drawing a blank. Anyway. Nice to cybermeet you, and you could and you SHOULD write a book in a month. You can dooo eeet! (Rob-Schneider style).
well…I have my forks, knives and spoons in separate interlocking trays, so I can just lift out the fork tray and set it on the counter. This is very helpful when we have lots of company and serve meals buffet style.
My kitchen tip is: your web server shouldn’t trip over less common user agent strings.
Wait! Wait! This isn’t spam!
Okay, okay, I realize most people don’t have web servers in their kitchen. And even if they did, this probably wouldn’t count as an organizational tip. But cut me some slack–I’m a first-time blogger.
i love tip tuesdays!
my tip for you is this:
keep your cups in the closest cabinet to your fridge. convenience is the key! (i know it’s not a great tip… but i’m new here.)
That’s a great one. It’s all about flo. 🙂
Keep everything that you don’t mind your 14 month old playing with in the bottom cupboards and drawers. That way, while you’re cooking or cleaning, she can have herself a little fiesta unloading tupperware bowls and such. You can clean it up easily, and she hasn’t died from the poison, or a stab-wound.
I have nothing I want to share, but enjoy all the posts. My kitchen makes me squeamish, in fact, sometimes, as well as the rest of my tiny house. 🙂 Maybe someday I’ll make cleaning and organizing my top priority. Maybe not. 🙂
I do that lid thing too!
Also, I have everything in my kitchen in “centers.” Different areas and cabinets in my kitchen are dedicated to different tasks. I have my baking center where I keep all things for baking– measuring cups, cupcake mold, mixer etc… Also, I keep my spices and oils next to the stove where I need them most.
hi! i’m new here … can i chip in my 2 cents’ worth?
i use a lot of spices and dried herbs and find that keeping them in a drawer near the stove is the most handy (leaving them exposed to light will lose the flavour sooner). also, i label them on the jar itself rather than on the lid, ‘cos i tend to use several jars at once and then dont want to spend time figuring out which lid belongs to which jar…
and, i put my wooden spoons, spatulas, whisks and stuff in an enormous mug and have them handy by the stove.
oh! oh! got one!
I hung my measuring spoons inside the door of the cabinet where I keep the spices, baking powder, etc. Much easier to grab than finding it in a drawer!
good one kim c.! i am totally doing that one!
did you know that Real Simple (the magazine I hate) is having a tip contest?
you could win $10,000…of which %15 you’d have to give to me…
cause I TIPPED you off…
right?
Ok, here’s my favorite. It may be more of a cleaning tip than an organizational one, but it saves time, so maybe it works. I always cover the tops of my kitchen cabinets with waxed paper. Then when I’m doing my spring house cleaning (often not until fall) I just roll up the greasy dust and throw it away. Replace and you’re good for another year.
Here’s my favorite one. I have a large upright freezer in my kitchen. I’ve divided all the meat into types: ground beef, chicken seafood, deli-meat, pork & ham, beef, etc. Each kind is put into it’s own plastic basket labeled with a laminated card. (I used plastic cable ties to attach the cards.) Now I can always find what I need in a hurry. When I buy new meat, I take out the basket and put the new purchases on the bottom so I use everything in the order in which it was bought. It takes up more room in the baskets, but I never waste frozen foods anymore.
I’m loving all these tips. I live in a very small New York City apartment, where the kitchen really is just one wall. Organization and space-saving is of the essence. Believe me, I’m taking good notes here. Some tricks I’ve done are storing my baking pans IN my oven. Yes, it gets tricky when I’m using the oven, but whe I’m not, they are out of the way. I also try to store food together in groups, such as baking supplies (flour, sugar, vanilla, baking powder, chocolate chips, etc.), pastas, sauces, etc. It helps me to know exactly where to look. My favorite organizing/space saving feature is the pot rack. How genius to have your pots up and out of the way hanging from the ceiling. I love it! Thanks again for all your tips.
The kits are a great idea! it makes it so simple to grab something you need.
This is basically just an extension of the kit idea, but outside the kitchen.
Put all the tools and supplies you’ll need for a particular task into a bag or box.
For example, I have a drawing kit, with a sketchbook, pencils, sharpener, eraser, and the how-to-draw book I’m using, and I keep them all in a bag. When I’m ready to sketch, know I have everything I need to get right down to work. Even if I grab it while I’m running out the door, I know I’ll have all my stuff. And cleaning up is easy; everything goes back into the bag. Putting the bag back where it belongs is the black-belt level 🙂 but at least if it’s all in the bag your work surface is clear.
Other kits I have or have had are a stargazing kit (binoculars, planisphere, star charts, observing log, pen, red flashlight), homework kit (scratch paper, clip board, pens, pencils, erasers, calculator, ruler), gym kit (gym pass & lanyard, toiletries, sneakers, and gym clothes & towel””the last two replaced with clean as soon as I get home), and separate knitting kits for two projects (because I always have more than one going at a time.)
There are two keys to the kit system:
1) So that little things don’t get lost, keep each kit in its own bag or box or basket.
2) Buy duplicate equipment when necessary. You can get Fiskars school scissors or a mini stapler or a nice shatterproof ruler for less than $5, and you’ll save the aggravation of realizing that you took the tool you need out of your kit to use on some other project and forgot to put it back.
Since Hubby makes waffles every Sunday morning, and does a lot of other baking, I created a “baking” kit – with all the key ingredients – the baking soda, salt, baking powder and vanilla – so he can just grab the basket and go.
We have lidded tubs in the pantry for seldom used groups of items – the baking (cookie cutters, spritz cookie press, etc..), the oriental (sushi mats, chopsticks, etc…), the outdoor (corn cob holders, tablecloth clips, small grill tools) so that these don’t take up room in our day to day space.
The kitchen is also undergoing a long and sometimes painful self-renovation, so things are always subject to change. The best best best thing we put in though was drawers – deep drawers – for pots/pans, mixing bowls, and plastic storage. LOVE THEM!
I have limited cabinets in my kitchen. My kitchen has a door going to the garage and another door that leading down to the basement. Hooks on the wall on the garage wall hold all my extra pots, pans, strainers, etc. I just open the door and reach to my left to grab what I need. The basement stair wall has towel bars with s-hooks on them to hold those items that take up so much drawer and cabinet space. I store all my baking pans, oversided stock pots upside-down on a 3 shelf storage unit in the garage.
I ditched all the mismatched plasticware and got a set that actually stacks! I also use tension spring curtain rods as a divider to keep the cookie trays from sliding into other things…the curtain rods go top to bottom in the cabinet under the sink and create a divider that holds things in place.
Ann, I love the tension rod idea.
I hope this one hasn’t been posted already… I buy cheapy sets of measuring cups at Wal-Mart and put one whole set into my bin of flour, another set into my bin of sugar, another one in my whole wheat flour bin, etc. The bins I have are large and I just take my bowl over and always have the right cup for measuring right at the bin. No need to even wash them, just throw it back into the bin it came from.
I have a container on the shelf in my fridge that we call the “Sandwich box”. It has cold cuts, cheese slices, mustard,small container of mayo., butter, When making school lunches we just grab the box from the fridge and have everything we need without many trips back and forth.
I do something like this. My lid kit is a lot like yours, but my lids tend to be pink! I think I’m using the exact same container for lids! I also have a kit for my medications and food supplements. You’ve inspired me to make one for my spices! Thanks so much!
Remodel.
Great kitchen reorganization tip that guarantees weight loss at the same time. Move your refrigerator to the basement. We are remodeling and I lost 10 lbs in a month going up and down the stairs at mealtime. Frees up space in the kitchen and you eat and get a workout at the same time. You do grow weary of George Foreman and Microwave food after a month.
Hey, I do this… now I have a name for it! As well as the box for plastic lids, I have a box for the boxes, a big cardboard tray that slides out of the base cabinet like a poor mans version of a pull-out shelf.
Another nice kit is for flavorings – the vanilla, mint, lemon, orange, anise etc essences are all in one small box on the baking shelf.
My measuring cups and spoons are in a spare segment of the cutlery drawer organizer so they are all together but not lift-outable. Have to think about finding a place for a kit for them, or if I can find a long narrow box that would fit the existing space.
I use the “meat drawer” in the fridge for all the cheeses, though I hadn’t thought of lifting it all out as one. Have to try that.
Great tips!
I’ll be posting one of mine tomorrow AND including before and afters 🙂
I am loving these ideas, especially the tension rod for cookie sheets and the measuring spoons haning inside the spice cabinet door!
I do a lot of investment cooking (cooking large quantities at once and freezing it) and my best tip for freezing things is:
flatten food out in ziploc bag and remove excess air. Place on cookie sheet and put in freezer so it freezes FLAT (works really well with cooked hamburger meet). You can then stack everything in nice rows in your freezer instead of having odd shaped hunks of meat that don’t stack.
I’ve got a couple of kits as well – a cleaning bucket in the bathroom with windex, bleach and a couple of cloths (saves me carrying stuff upstairs) and a hairdrying straightening kit. I have it in a nice wicker basket which I hide under a table in the lounge. Then I can watch TV while I do my hair (the most boring job ever).
Love the idea of labelling spice lids!
Mine is a freezer / meal tip: I take my lunch to work every day, so when I cook, I freeze lunch size portions of the dish in small ziplock baggies and put all the baggies in a larger freezer bag. I clearly label and date the bag and put it in the freezer. Over time I tend to accumulate several different types of dishes, so I also keep an “inventory” list on the freezer door, with names and dates of what I have available for lunches.
In the evenings before bed, I can decide what I want to take for lunch the next day, pull it out of the freezer and put it in a lidded container (suitable for taking it to work in) in the fridge to thaw overnight. Then in the morning I grab it and go. It keeps everything organized, and it makes taking lunch to work simple, which is critical for me if I’m going to brown bag it!
I do this, but I make my storage from the bottom of milk cartons and other bottles. It stops everything rolling around in the drawers, and means I can fit more in vertically 🙂
Hi there! 🙂 I’m new to this site and have thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the tips. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Now, it’s my turn:
There are a few thing s I have learned over the years…
-I hand all my cake pans up on the wall–near the ceiling, so they are out of the way, but I can still see them to know what I have and they do not clutter my baking cabinet for the other pans I use frequently.
-I put my medicines in small boxes–divided into two main groups: my husbands stuff, and the kids and my stuff. That way, when I’m searching for something for the kids, I’m not pawing through my husbands’ medicine and won’t get them mixed up as easily–esp since my oldest son’s name is the same as my husband’s.
–I use the Pampered chef measuring spoon and measuring cup instead of a bunch of them…I like them because they adjust sizes depending on what measurement you need–I keep two on hand, one for wet ingredients and one for dry ingredients.
–I put a measuring cup in each of my ingredient bins. (Example, since I use a cup measurement mostly for flour recipes, I leave a cup measuring cup in the flour…Since I use 1/2 cup measurement for most recipes that have sugar, I leave a 1/2 cup in the sugar container…) OK, you get the idea.
–I have two drawers for kitchen utensils: one for commonly used items, and the other for not-so-often used items. That way, I’m not searching through a bunch of things for the item I use most often. I also keep a tool-turn-about ( another Pampered Chef item) near the stove for those items I use every day.
OK, that’s enough for now…Newbies shouldn’t steal the show.
Thanks again for all the tips. 🙂
I leave all the hard to stack kids plates (you know mickey mouse shaped bowls, plates shaped like monster heads) in a bottom drawer that i don’t mind being a mess. the kids love choosing their own plates for dinner in the easily accessible drawer.the kids have a hand in setting the table and sometimes, if we’re lucky dad and i get fun plates too! the best part, i don’t have to worry what a mess the drawer is – it’s no my drawer!!
I was in the kitchen digging around in a heavily cluttered utinsil drawer. I have forgotten what I was looking for but I remember what I found; a sharp knife.
Thank-you for saving me from more pain!
Oooo.. Good luck setting up your kits.