Sixteen Ideas for Organizing a Small Kitchen

16 Ideas for \Organizing A Small Kitchen

Hello everyone! I hope you are having a wonderful Easter weekend. It is now Sunday evening, and I am feeling truly refreshed, from a luxurious Spring Break. My husband booked some time, off, too, and we truly enjoyed our little house in the woods, and allowed ourselves some time to simply "be."


We had a lovely Easter day, too. We did not go to any service, but did read the Scriptures and prayed together. As a believer in Jesus, I find this day to be a day of hope and joy, because it points to serving a God who is alive and all-loving. Without my God, my life is useless, and I have to confess this today, on Resurrection Sunday!

So my GH (gorgeous husband) and I had a few days of pure laziness, where we simply did what we felt like doing. Like web surfing, T.V. watching, and walking:



A walk through the woods, to Lake Winnipeg.

To the lake:

Lake Winnipeg: it looks like waves, but it is ice formations.

So, after about four days of just relaxing with my husband, I got up and had to get some work done. What did I work on? Our kitchen! This has been an ongoing project since we moved  here 15 months ago.

And I wanted to share some cheap-o organizing ideas for the kitchen. Of course, these ideas are not all original, but every kitchen is a little bit different, and applied in slightly different ways, and all these pics are straight from our kitchen.

Our kitchen is fairly small, and it's been a bit challenging for me to try to find spaces for everything. Plus, we don't want to spend much anything for it. So, without further adieu, here are the pictures of our pretty darn organized kitchen.

It's not super-pretty but it's working. From a reformed recovering slob, to you. Please let me know if this gives you any ideas for yourself!

1. Use empty Walmart boxes for holding spices. This is an empty box I got from the shelves from Walmart. (I got this idea, from my teacher-friend who gets many of her containers for the classroom this way. You go in and ask permission first, and then you can grab containers from things that have sold out on the shelves.)

Store spices in this.

2.  I use this one to store my cheese graters:

Store cheese graters in a repurposed chocolate bar display container.

3. Store your toaster and other appliances in an old dish rack tray, or other tray. This will stop the crumbs from going all over the bottom of the cupboard. I got the idea, of toaster on a tray, from one of my fave organizer gurus, Malitose79.

Store your toaster and other appliances on a tray.

4. The travel mugs we have acquired have been the bane of my existence, for all of my marriage. They took up one shelf of the cupboard, but we could never find a cup ad lid together, without exceptional effort. So, I thought of this:

Store your travel mugs in a box.

Store your travel mugs in a box ... with lids and throw out all the rest of them away. This box holds the three that actually have lids. The rest were tossed. And I can slide the box out, when they are needed. So simple!

5. Break up your egg cartons into two sides, and use both sides to store items that would go in your big utensil drawers, such as can pizza cutters, and potato peelers. Use these to have specific places for all of your utensils. To keep the utensils organized, you can also use the tray containers, found at the Dollar store, or Walmart. 

Break up egg cartons and use to store utensils.

 
 and for your knives:

Egg carton halves used to store knives.

6. In the picture with the egg carton containers, you can also see the drawer organizers storing the scissors and can openers. These are also great for organizing utensils. These ones cost me a $1 or $2 each and were bought a while ago.

And this next picture features ideas number 7, 8, and 9.

7. Use plastic containers from for your rice and beans.(These pour!) I got these at the dollar store, for $2 each.

8. And cereal in a cereal container. Got this at the dollar, for about $2.00.

9: Put your spaghetti in a pourable container, with a lid. This one from Walmart was about $5.00.

Bulk food in containers.

 11. These Rubbermaid bulk storage containers for sugar and flour, and other bulk foods. These were the probably the most expensive items we bought, for about $24 for two sets of three containers. I have been wanting to get my bulk food into containers, but now we finally have! These keep your food away from potential invaders (a constant threat, here in the woods.)

Rubbermaid containers for flour and sugar.

12. These sweet baskets from the Dollar Store for small loose items, like gravy packages, or chicken coatings, or extra salad dressing bottles, whatever you need. These are great because they keep these items up, and easy to access.

Baskets for small food items in the pantry.

13. Store your plates and bowls in a drawer (if you have an extra big one.) My husband suggested this, and it's brilliant! This was a totally new concept for me, because I have never had a house with big strong drawers like this, before.
And it made me realize how much space we waste by storing them in a cabinet.

Plates and bowls stored in a drawer.

14. Store your pots and pans with all the lids on, so you never have to find the lid again! I know this idea is not original, but I had always tried to save space by stacking the pots, and storing the lids elsewhere. Now that I have tried it this way, I honestly feel less stressed, because I know that pots won't fall down, and I won't have to search everywhere to find a lid that fits.

Store all your pots and pans with the lids on!

!5. And also related to the picture above, try storing your most-used pots and pans right above the stove, if you have the room. It is so nice to just grab the pot you need, right at the source. I used to have a mish-mash of sauces and rice up there, but this is so much nicer. Easy to simply grab and cook. With our pots and pans this way, I honestly feel less stressed about the idea of cooking!

16. And this next one, I want to give credit to this very cool blog/Youtube channel I came across yesterday, called A Slob Comes Clean.  She is so inspirational! She says to store your plastic containers with the lids. Those that don't have lids or containers, throw away.

Store your food containers with the lid on!

This makes so much sense to me, because I absolutely hate digging through my huge pile of random containers of every size and sort, finally finding a container, and then NOT A LID! Story of my life.

I have now purged out those mysterious lids without containers, and voila, I present the "every container has a lid" drawer. I swear this is the first time this has happened in my life. Love it! Thank you, Dana White!

And that's all I have time for. I will try to get more ideas in a later post.

A related article:

Storage Ideas for Small Bathrooms


And now, just one more picture from our walk in the woods, in this rather reluctant spring, here in Canada. Hope you have an excellent week, and have had some refreshing this Easter weekend.

The time between frozen and spring: life in a Canadian forest.

Love Sharilee. Hey thanks so much for reading. I would love to hear your comments and input in the space below. Also, if you like what you are reading, sign up through my Facebook page. or receive posts by e-mail by joining here