Kitchen Cabinet Organization

Kitchen cabinet organization shouldn’t even be a post. What has this world come to? We all know that there are super easy ways to organize kitchen cabinets, and yet very few of us do it, right? I love to organize, and yet even I find myself falling off the bandwagon from time to time.

We have a very outdated and inefficient kitchen layout. I’m constantly amazed at how stupid some house designers seem to be when creating certain spaces. Do they even cook? If you spend four seconds in my kitchen, you’ll immediately want to shake the person who drew up the plans for our home. If someone else were to walk into the kitchen and say…want to get something out of the fridge – which is in the middle of the freaking walkthrough – you’ll definitely want to punch the architect right in the gooch.

Next to our fridge, which as I mentioned, is right in the way of anyone getting in or out of the kitchen, is this random little desk with broken drawers and an upper set of cupboards. Like the rest of the kitchen, it is decked out in crappy Formica and faux oak veneer. It is breathtaking, to say the least. These cupboards are home to the odds and ends in my kitchen that I don’t use often and appliances that are too large for my “I hate things out in the open” counters. And like many corners of my home, this cupboard had fallen into disrepair.

Look at it. LOOK at it. Take in my shame.

Anytime I needed something behind that leaning tower of yogurt maker cups or popsicle molds, items would rain down on me like angry bees. I gave up on this cupboard. I turned my back on it, and it was dead to me. And then like most fits of organizing porn that I go through, I was over the mess and had to fix it right now. This entire cupboard of broken dreams was fixed for the mere price of $10 (I got them at Target).

Step One
Remove everything from the cupboard and go through all the items. Oh hey look, it is the kitchen torch I thought I lost, so I asked for another one for Christmas. Great, cause everyone needs two kitchen torches. 🙁

I made a pile for Goodwill, and a pile of stuff to move to the garage. And then some stuff just got tossed and recycled, because I am guessing the DVD (still wrapped in plastic) that came with my food processor that I got eight years ago for Christmas, probably isn’t a priority for me.

Step Two
Reorganize smartly. The towering cluster of lunch bags needed to be wrangled. A simple wire mesh magazine organizer turned on its side not only let me stash the lunch bags but also store the lunch boxes on top. I then looked at the two heavy appliances I store in this cupboard that is the entry point to the seventh layer of organizing hellfire and realized that it was stupid to store heavy things up high.

Step Three
I put like items with like items. All the cookie cutters went into one container, and the other container now houses random items like our popsicle molds (I found them at TJ Maxx for $4), spiralizer, pie bird, and such.

Step Four
Label maker!!!!! Calm down. Deep breath. Then, put everything back in an efficient manner, stand back to admire my handiwork, and try not to get too excited. Turns out the boys in my house are not ones to give out high fives when you finish an organizing job. Whatever. Weirdos.

Yep, that is a ninja gingerbread cookie cutter. We like to make “ninjabreadmen” at Christmas.

This black basket has made the rounds for various uses in my house for years. Its current iteration is holding the attachments for my Kitchen Aid and food processor.

And there you have it; my simple $10 fix to a nagging kitchen cabinet organization problem. Until I win the lottery and redo this kitchen that looks like the backdrop for a 70’s porn that was shot in a mountain cabin, my $10 fix will have to do. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be off drooling over the IKEA kitchens, and getting an organization boner from the Container Store website.

It’s not weird at all. Don’t worry about it.