When space is at a premium, a kitchen can be tough to work in. Although every family has its own clutter, if your kitchen is smaller or the layout is difficult to work with, finding a place for everything can be a challenge.
When your kitchen is well-organized, on the other hand, cooking and preparing meals can be a breeze. That’s because, for most people, orderly work environments are more conducive to productivity than the alternative.
If space and layout considerations in your kitchen have your kitchen drowning in clutter, let our cabinet storage experts at Boca Cabinets show you a better way. Check out this guide to organizing your kitchen and then give us a call to learn how cabinet organizers can transform your home.
Should You Reduce or Simply Reorganize?
If you type in a Google search for kitchen clutter solutions, you’ll find that the Internet is brimming with varied suggestions of all kinds. But one of the most common solutions to a cluttered space is to pare down your belongings. Unfortunately, this can be difficult to do if your “clutter” consists mainly of cooking utensils, kitchen appliances, and food products.
There are a few common categories of kitchen items that homeowners tend to hang onto unnecessarily. Most of us end up hanging onto a few free plastic cups that come with takeout meals. And then there are the mysteriously unmatched plastic lids and containers that we keep hoping their counterparts will eventually turn up again. Extra cutlery and expired dry foods are also common culprits.
While you can use the famous Marie Kondo method to eliminate items that aren’t useful and don’t bring you joy, kitchens are full of useful items that may only get used occasionally. These items represent just a small sample of the many essentials you may have trouble storing in your kitchen:
● Pots and pans
● Serving utensils
● Cutlery
● Table linens
● Serving platters
● Dinnerware
● Pitchers
● Glassware
● Coffee pot
● Toaster oven
● Cutting boards
● Stemware
● Bar items
● Cleaning necessities
● And more
Eliminating Bad Habits
Your next step to managing kitchen clutter is to evaluate how you work in your kitchen beginning with your worst clutter-related habits. When your cabinet storage is lacking, it can be all too tempting to dump items onto your kitchen counters only to never fully put everything away. This is especially true when you have an abundance of occasional-use kitchen appliances like blenders, sandwich grills, crockpots, and waffle irons.
Take a moment to perform a “walk-through” of your kitchen cabinets. Do you store your canned foods in the same area of your kitchen as your dishware? Do you end up cramming all of your pots, pans, and baking equipment into a deep cabinet that you have to kneel to reach into? Take notes on your findings so you can use them to formulate a better strategy for kitchen management.
Organizing Your Kitchen
Let’s say you’ve taken a look around your kitchen and narrowed down your belongings to the things you don’t want to get rid of. Your next step is to find a place for everything that remains.
Designing your kitchen around designated areas and cabinet organization is the key to a highly functional kitchen. The type of work you plan to do in your kitchen and the way you use your kitchen space will directly influence your kitchen needs. The beauty of ordering custom cabinets is that you have the opportunity to customize your space to your family’s uniquely individual needs.
Consider these organizing tips:
1. Add pull-out containers for managing kitchen waste and recycling.
2. Add custom organization tools for sorting utensils and cutlery.
3. Use vertical storage for managing flat items like cutting boards and cookie sheets.
4. Install turntables for managing cooking oils, seasonings, and condiments.
5. Install hanging racks for items like mugs and cooking pans.
It can be helpful during this stage of the process to think of your kitchen in terms of zoning. Below are examples of kitchen zones you will need to designate during this step:
● Food prep zone or zones
● Baking zone
● Dish zone
● Cleaning and waste management zones
● Food zones for storing non-perishable items
● Dining zone
● Work/home office zone
Kitchen Cabinet Design
Now that you’ve trimmed down your clutter load and evaluated your organizational needs, a kitchen cabinet design team can help you design perfect cabinet storage. We’ll start by customizing your new cabinets from choosing the perfect stain color and countertops to rethinking your kitchen layout.
As we’re designing your kitchen cabinets, we can add helpful storage solutions like these:
● Turntables/Lazy Susans
● Base fillers for small item organization
● Sink front trays
● Waste container pull-outs
● Spice racks
● Peg drawers
● And more!
Connect with a Nationwide Cabinet Designer
Are you tired of having to look in every drawer and cabinet just to find an item you need? Let Boca Cabinets get your clutter under control for good! We can provide custom cabinet designs locally in Chicago or distribute them anywhere in the country.
To get your free personalized cabinet design consultation or schedule a showroom appointment, call Boca Cabinets at 773-886-4686 or use our helpful contact page. We can’t wait to hear from you!