When getting a fry pan from the back of a deep cabinet requires standing on your forehead, cooking becomes a lot less fun.
Unfortunately, a lack of good kitchen storage is one of the most common issues homeowners encounter. Most kitchens – especially older kitchens and smaller kitchens – simply lack functional storage. This causes counter space to quickly become cluttered and turns prepping a 20-minute meal into a headache.
Luckily, with the right kitchen cabinet storage solutions, you can maximize your existing space in ways you never imagined
8 Kitchen Cabinet Storage Ideas
1. Toe-Kick Drawers
As the name would suggest, a kitchen toe-kick is the space between the bottom of your cabinets and the floor. This space is indented slightly to help you avoid stubbing your toe as you stand in front of your countertops. It also happens to be a space that often goes unused.
However, if you’re working with a skilled custom carpenter, your kitchen may be equipped to handle toe-kick drawers. The drawers won’t be very deep, but they can be a good place for extraneous items like off-season dish towels, infrequently-used cookbooks, and celebratory items (such as birthday candles and cupcake sprinkles).
2. Outlets Inside Cupboards (or Drawers)
One of the keys to organizing your kitchen and eliminating clutter, is getting extra items off your counter. In today’s gadget-heavy age, plugs, cords, and devices have a tendency to take up a lot of space.
This is why one of our favorite kitchen cabinet storage solutions is adding outlets inside cupboards and/or drawers. This allows you and your loved ones to charge your devices without taking up valuable counter top real estate.
Additionally, storing devices in a cupboard or drawer helps protect them from spills and splatters.
3. Vertical Dividers
Pizza pans. Cookie sheets. Cutting boards. Dinner trays. Cheese platters. Marble pastry boards. Depending on what you like to cook, all of these flat (or nearly flat) items could be in your kitchen toolbox. The problem is, these kitchen tools have a tendency to take up a lot of space.
Long, flat, and wide, just a few cutting boards or cookie sheets can dominate an entire cabinet. Or worse, they can turn into a crazy stack that leaves you wondering, ‘Do I even own a rimmed baking sheet?’
By equipping a tall cupboard with vertical dividers, you can give all of these items a dedicated home that maximizes your space. Storing your cutting boards, cooling racks, cookie sheets and pizza pans with vertical dividers allows you to seeall of your items and easily access them.
4. Hanging Pots & Pans
Like cookie sheets, a few big pots and pans can quickly take up an entire cupboard. This is especially true if the pots and pans aren’t designed to nest one inside the other.
Hanging pots and pans can be a fun way to maximize your storage. It allows you to display some of your favorite items – like a copper fry pan or rustic stock pot. And, it eliminates the Jenga-like conundrum many home cooks face.
5. Maximizing Your Broom Closet
A broom closet’s a broom closet’s a broom closet. Until it’s not. No broom needs its own locker-sized resting space. By mounting your long-handled items on the back of your closet door, you can outfit your broom closet with floor to ceiling shelves.
This updated space instantly gives you a pantry, meaning you don’t need to give up valuable kitchen cabinet space to staple items like flour, canned beans, and dried fruit. Alternatively, you may want to think of this newly outfitted space as cleaning central. Use the shelves to hold cleaning supplies. Or make the closet do double duty, holding cleaning supplies on the bottom shelves and kitchen appliances on the top.
6. Pull Out Shelves
Few things cause more kitchen clutter than a deep cupboard that becomes a black hole. When items are out of sight, they are definitely out of mind. This can cause cooking to be more difficult – especially when you need to practically practically do acrobatics just to access a pot.
Forgetting items at the back of a deep cupboard can also lead to buying multiple of the same kitchen tool, hanging onto expired food, and just generally wasting space.
Pull out shelves are one of our favorite storage solutions. They transform the wasted space at the back of those deep shelves and turn it into functional room you can use and easily access.
7. Tiered Shelving Inside Cupboards
One of the most frustrating things about cupboards is being able to see what’s stored at the back. While storage ideas like rolling shelves are great for lower cupboards, this would be a difficult feature to utilize for shelves at eye level or higher.
Tiered shelving offers a fabulous solution. It allows you to see each item from the front of your cupboard all the way to the back. This is particularly ideal for cooks who want to put their spice rack in a cupboard.
8. Corner Cabinet Accessories
Corner cabinets are another space that is often wasted. Like deep cabinets, the back side of a corner cabinet can easily become a black hole. Often when you’re looking for extra storage, you don’t need to expand your kitchen. You just need to find better ways to use the space you already have.
A variety of corner cabinet accessories, like lazy susans and half lazy susans, allow you to see the full contents of your cabinet.
Do you have enough kitchen storage?
Often, creating more kitchen storage doesn’t require a complete remodel. From replacing your kitchen cabinets to making simple updates to your layout, you can cut down on clutter without breaking the bank.
Schedule a consultation today.
More Kitchen Design Tips
Can I keep some or all of my existing appliances during a kitchen update?
Planning a Kitchen Remodel? Should you keep your old appliances or think about getting new ones? We’ll review some of the important considerations.
How long does it take to install new kitchen cabinets?
Planning a Kitchen Remodel? Keep your renovation on track. Learn how to manage your cabinet installation timeline to avoid excruciating roadblocks and stress.
How to Choose the Right Kitchen Countertop Material
Upgrading your kitchen? Discover how to choose the right countertop to make your kitchen remodel perfect – now and for years to come!