This month I'm organizing my kitchen and as I do I'm sharing tips to help you organize your kitchen. Today I'm sharing tips for organizing dishes and glasses in your kitchen cupboards.
Kitchen Organizing Tips
In case you've missed any, here are the kitchen organizing tips I've shared so far in this series:
- Use drawer dividers
- Measure before you buy
- Determine the purpose of each drawer
- Purge before organizing
- Store like with like
- Keep items where you use them
- Store items you don't regularly use in "out-of-the-way" spots
- Maximize the vertical space in deep drawers
- Create zones in your kitchen
- Use boxes and baskets to contain like items
- Use clear containers for baking ingredients
- Label your containers
- Done is better than perfect
Today I'm moving to the other side of my kitchen. There are three upper cabinets. I'll show you pictures of all three of them before I organized them last week. And then I'll just reveal the "after" pics and tips for organizing them over a few posts.
Here's the cupboard on the left:
It's got a mix of breakfast, lunch and dinner food in it, as well as a few boxes of baggies (it's hard to see them because they're hidden behind those carefully placed extra bags!).
This is the middle cupboard (above the sink).
I wasn't following my tip to create zones, because this cupboard had some glasses, cups and mugs, but it also had food and drink items.
And here's the cupboard on the right (above our dishwasher).
This cabinet had our plates and bowls, as well as some frequently used leftover containers, tea pot, travel mugs, and a few other miscellaneous items. There are usually more plates and bowls than this too... hadn't emptied the dishwasher when I took these before pictures... oops!
We used to have one big long cupboard on this side of the kitchen, with 5 doors evenly spaced across the front. When we put in these new kitchen cabinets a few years ago the layout was different than before because now we had 3 separate cupboards.
At the time I just kind of put stuff in the area we were used to finding it. I planned to move things around as we adjusted to the new cupboards, but never really did. I've got kind of a mish mash of food and dishes in each cupboard. Not ideal. Time for an overhaul!
Kitchen Organizing Tip #14 - Store dishes in a cupboard you can easily reach when you empty the dishwasher
We added a built-in dishwasher to our kitchen a few years ago (when we re-did the cabinets). But it was hard to put the plates and bowls away where we had them (in that cupboard on the right) because when the dishwasher was open you had to reach over it to get into the cabinet. My hubby's tall so he didn't have any problems. I could just barely do it but I was frequently annoyed about having to reach so far.
But there was no way my kids could put the dishes away straight out of the dishwasher. They had to make piles on the counter first and then close the dishwasher door before putting the piles of plates and bowls away in the cupboard. No point making things any more difficult on your kids if they're helping in the kitchen!
Here's my dishes cupboard now!
Isn't it great? First of all, you may notice it's less crowded than before. Yep... I purged a lot! Now I have just the cups and glasses we use regularly in this cabinet. We had way more glasses and cups than we ever needed in here before. I'll show you my purge and relocate piles in Wednesday's post.
You may be wondering where my mugs went... I'll show you that on Wednesday too :)
Oh, and you may also be thinking, "What is Hilda going to use that empty top shelf for?" {You're very curious today aren't you?!} I'm not completely sure yet, but I've got some clutter on top of my fridge so I'm thinking that empty shelf will help clear that surface.
OK, back to the tip. I strategically moved our plates and bowls into this cupboard above the sink. It's perfect for emptying the dishwasher! Now you can stand right in front of this cupboard, reach down to the right to take the dishes out of the dishwasher, and just stand up and put them right here in this cupboard. Why didn't I do this a long time ago? Watch out kids... :)
Kitchen Organizing Tip #15 - Maximize the vertical space in cabinets
You can see in the picture above that I kept an under-the-shelf basket (similar to this one) over the plates because there's so much wasted vertical space there. I wasn't sure what I was going to use it for, but I figured if I had it there it then I'd find a good use for it.
About a year ago I'd tried a wire rack for my plates in the other cabinet, but because the cupboard was narrower, it didn't really work well. Plus, it was expensive so I returned it.
But, I just found a stacking rack at Dollarama this morning for $2.00 and knew immediately that it would be better for my plates. Here it is:
It fits great in this cupboard! I like that now each size of plates has its own pile. Again, this makes it easier for my kids to get plates out and put them away without having to deal with different sizes piled on top of each other. You can find a similar one here.
If your dishes and glasses need organizing, implement one or more of these kitchen organizing tips to simplify your life and reduce your time in the kitchen.
You can find more kitchen organizing ideas on my Kitchen Organizing board on Pinterest.
Stay tuned throughout the month as I continue to show you my kitchen and share tips to help you organize yours. I'll show you the "after" pictures of the other two cabinets on Wednesday!
How do you organize your dishes and glasses? Do you have tips for maximizing vertical space in cabinets?
Happy organizing!
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