Organizing Kitchen and Food-Storage Areas

If there’s ever a place where activities clash, it’s the kitchen! Because the kitchen is the heart of the home, it attracts family members and the possessions in their wake. Papers pile up, school assignments sprawl out, and scattered shoes and jackets clamor to join the fun. To bring order to the kitchen, begin by identifying and relocating activities best carried out elsewhere. Setting up family launch pads and creating a life-management center for planning and paperwork diverts the flood of paper and possessions to more appropriate locations.

Setting Up Kitchen Activity Centers

Visualizing the kitchen in terms of activity centers helps organize the space efficiently. Most kitchens contain these activity centers:

•  Stovetop, for cooking

•  Oven, for baking

•  Sink, for preparing food and washing dishes

•  Refrigerator/freezer, for cold storage

•  Pantry, for room-temperature storage

Kitchen activity centers overlap to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the size of your kitchen. For instance, a single drawer may be part of two or even three activity centers.

At the stovetop, the activity center zeroes in on the space in, on, and immediately around the stove. Store pots and pans, spoons and ladles, potholders, and often-used supplies like salt and pepper so you can reach them without having to move away from the stove.

The oven activity center is home to roasting and baking. Oven-safe dishes, cookie sheets, cake pans, measuring spoons, and mixing bowls must be stored nearby. The oven activity center also needs easy access to baking supplies like flour and cooking spray, small appliances such as a mixer, and specialty tools like the rolling pin.

Food is prepared and dishes are washed at the sink activity center. Nearby, you’ll want to store strainers, cutting boards, vegetable brushes, and cutlery. A trashcan and composting bin should be located in a convenient spot to handle food refuse. Under the sink, keep dishwasher detergent, scrubbing sponges, and specialty cleaners for silver or brass close at hand for easy cleanup.

In the refrigerator/freezer, family members hunt for food, chilled drinks, and ice cubes. Store drinking glasses nearby for beverage service, and simplify storing leftovers by keeping plastic wrap, freezer storage bags, and disposable containers near the refrigerator.

The pantry activity center is home to long-term food storage. Canned goods, beans and pasta, and cereal products share this space with backup supplies of cooking oil, bottled dressings and sauces, and boxed mixes.

SPEEDY SOLUTION

Kitchen counter space is far too valuable to act as a catchall for items that belong elsewhere. Set up a lost-and-found box near the kitchen. Sweep wandering items off the counters and into the box, and refer owners to the lost-and-found box to retrieve missing possessions.

Stand back in your kitchen and map out the location of each activity center. The cabinet nearest the sink, along with a nearby drawer, marks the boundaries of the sink area. Cabinets beneath a cooktop or next to the range can be assigned to the stovetop center. Mapping out activity centers in this way brings a natural order to the kitchen.

Assign kitchen tools and implements to their appropriate center. The potato peeler and vegetable knife live near the sink center, while muffin tins and cake pans hang out with the crowd near the oven. Whether doing the dishes or preparing a snack, your goal is to have everything you need for that activity as close at hand as possible.

Creative Kitchen Organization Ideas

Because it hosts so many different activities, the kitchen takes all the organizing power you can muster. To get organized in the kitchen, check out this potpourri of tips:

•  Keep the kitchen honed to items you need and use frequently. Find storage for oversize cooking pans, seasonal tools, and extra dishes outside the hard-working everyday kitchen area.

•  To make the best use of space in the back of cabinets, install pullout drawers in lower cabinet areas. Running on rails, they bring cabinet contents to you! Install a pullout for the trashcan, too, if you store it beneath the sink. For easier recycling, double-can pullouts allow you to sort out recyclables as you toss the trash.

•  Under the kitchen sink, lay claim to the murky space beneath the garbage disposer with an oversize lazy Susan. A quick spin brings stored cleaning products out from the back and into the light of day.

•  Customize shelf heights to maximize storage potential in cabinets or pantry. Begin by stocking cabinets at the bottom, setting each shelf to an appropriate height for the items it will hold. To add extra shelves to the cabinet, have the lumberyard trim ready-made shelves to the sizes you’ll need.

•  When tall items share a shelf with shorter ones, adding a freestanding wire shelf organizer allows you to double-stack the little guys, leaving the long fellows to stand tall on the rest of the shelf.

•  Vertical storage works well for cookie sheets, cutting boards, and serving trays. To protect these items, install simple spring tension rods to subdivide vertical space, or look for premade organizers to create vertical cubbies for slender pans.

•  Cabinet-door storage units turn empty space into prime real estate. Use them to organize plastic wrap, food-storage bags, spice jars, and pan lids. Full-size door organizers create bonus pantry space on the back of the door.

ROAD HAZARD

Wood and water don’t mix; don’t store sponges, scrubbing brushes, or hand towels where they can touch cabinet surfaces. Draping a hand towel over an under-sink cabinet door attracts moisture that will damage the wood finish. Find the towel a home on a towel rack to preserve your kitchen’s beauty.

•  If small children live in your household, store plastic cups, cereal bowls, and cartoon character plates in a low, easy-to-reach location. Having access to their own stuff encourages children to help set the table and put away clean dishes.

•  When selecting small appliances, look for models that can be mounted underneath the cabinet. Storing items like coffee makers and can openers underneath upper cabinets keeps them close at hand and off the kitchen counter.

•  Be selective about the array of accessories that come packaged with small appliances. If you haven’t used an accessory in a month or two, you never will; release it to make space in the kitchen.

•  Don’t be afraid to break up sets. Just because dishes come with a certain number of place settings to the box doesn’t mean you can’t limit stacks of plates to the number you use regularly. Remove extras to an exterior storage area to keep the kitchen lean and mean.

•  Stick with see-through solutions for kitchen storage. Clear food-storage containers make it easy to tell whether there’s cereal or spaghetti inside; see-through plastic food-storage bags protect open packages of food without obscuring their identities.

•  Where needed, use drawer dividers to mark the informal boundary between kitchen activity centers. The sink area’s vegetable brush and can opener are stored on one side of a shared drawer; measuring cups and the rolling pin spread out on the other.

•  Don’t overfill drawers. Tempting as it is to cram it all in there, be sure you can see each item in the drawer at a glance. Drawer dividers create compartments to keep kitchen tools separated and easy to find.

•  Free up scarce drawer space by displaying pretty wooden spoons, spatulas, and whisks upright in a small canister. While cooking, you can reach them easily, and they add a note of gourmet charm to the kitchen.

•  Store flatware in a divided basket or picnic tote. Choose a unit with a sturdy handle so you can easily move the silverware from dishwasher, to counter, to tabletop.

•  Nondamaging adhesive hooks offer versatile solutions for any kitchen. Apply one near the oven to hang potholders for ready use. An adhesive clip corrals coupons and the weekly shopping list, ready to grab and go.

•  Magnetic knife strips store knives and cutlery safely and conveniently. Hang them inside a cabinet door, out of reach of children. When knives aren’t bumping about in the drawer, they’ll avoid nicks and knocks that dull their edges and will stay sharp longer.

SPEEDY SOLUTION

Encourage family members to pitch in and help by labeling the edge of kitchen shelves with the names of items to be placed there. Electronic label makers create adhesive labels that are easy to read and slim enough to fit shelf edges.