With the fall and winter holiday entertaining season ramping up, there is no better time to get your kitchen organized!
I’ve been helping various clients with organizational solutions as well as upgrading some of my own kitchen cabinet inserts.
Whether you are retrofitting existing cabinets or trying to outfit new cabinets, there are so many options for organizing.
Cabinets that have efficient and well organized storage can mean the difference between a kitchen that is a pleasure to work in and one that is a constant uphill battle.
Cabinets are all just boxes with doors and shelves. What makes them easy to use is the organizational inserts that are specific for what you need to access.
There are pull outs of all kinds - metal shelves or wood shelves, pull out bins and pull out trays, and even shelves for appliances that pull out and pop up to counter height for heavy equipment like a standing mixer.
The down side to ANY pull out is that it takes space either on the sides or bottom or both for the hardware that attaches it, and in cabinets with a face frame, you lose some width to allow the pull out to clear the opening. BUT, all of that is trumped by the ability to get to everything on the shelf without having to do an archeological dig in the cabinet every time!
I love the quality of Rev-a-shelf products and specify them often. Even when you buy new stock or semi-custom cabinets, the inserts are often sourced from Rev-a-shelf.
Please note: this post contains affiliate links meaning I may make a small commission on any purchases at no additional cost to you.
Here are some of my favorite storage solutions (click on highlighted text for links to items):
Cabinet inserts
Some of my cabinets that are staying and getting a facelift with paint in my own kitchen refresh have just celebrated their 30th birthday?! They are still good and all wood, so making them work better rather than the expense of new cabinet boxes is how I chose to proceed.
Over the years, I’ve taken apart a swing out three layer complicated pantry system and replaced it with these metal pull out shelves so I can easily get to items at the back of the tall deep pantry. It is currently storing my legion amount of pots and pans (my pantry items have all been relocated to other cabinets).
There are all kinds of organizational inserts. pull out inserts for blind corner cabinets and specific pot lid and pot storage pull outs as well.
There are bakeware pull outs with vertical dividers, utensil cup pullouts, and spice pullouts with adjustable shelves for base cabinets - great for storing cooking oils etc in a narrow space near the stove.
And there are many wooden drawer pullouts available as well as metal depending on your preference.
There are specific under sink storage pullouts with tiered shelves to fit around the plumbing. Side note: in my daughters apartment kitchen in Germany, the sink plumbing is ALL IN THE WALL somehow so there are full sized pull out trash bins under the sink! Genius!
I installed this pullout recycling bin insert in another cabinet.
And I just bought a whole new lazy susan assembly for my corner cabinet that had original metal shelves that were all rusted and a mechanism that was not, shall we say, smooth to operate.
I can’t wait for my handyman to get here to actually install it! I’ve already loaded up one of the shelves with these really great wedge shaped bins that fit perfectly to maximize the space and keep my bottles of oils, vinegars, and sauces organized and upright!
I added these {literally life-changing!} vertical spice rack pullouts to one of my upper cabinets that I found on Amazon. Available in a variety of widths and configurations, they are transformative for having easy access to all my spices at a glance without having to rifle thru a jumble of bottles or decant them all into decorative containers that take up precious counter space.
I also advocate for vertical partitions for deep cabinets that are high up, like the top of a pantry cabinet, or a 24” deep cabinet above a refrigerator.
You are NEVER going to climb up on a stepladder and carry things from the front down to ferret out whatever is lurking in the back of those cabinets!
So use them for trays, platters, cookie sheets, cooling racks, and cutting boards! Stored vertically between upright partitions they will be easy to access from the front of the cabinet without moving a pile of stuff on top of them.
Cabinet organizational inserts are not limited to the kitchen either! There are bathroom vanity pullouts for hampers and for grooming tools (with special holders for hairdryers and curling irons).
Drawer inserts
There are a zillion ways to organize drawers as well!
The obvious ones are silverware and utensil drawer storage. In order to maximize my silverware drawer with deep enough dividers to store my extra flatware, I built my own divider years ago, but there are many customizable inserts for silverware drawers.
Not only are there flatware and utensil organizers, but also angled spice bottle holders (though I find the pull out racks mentioned above more versatile for a variety of container sizes), and slotted knife storage inserts.
More recently, I discovered these nice customizable spring loaded bamboo dividersed bamboo dividers when I redid my utility (junk) drawer. C’mon, we ALL have one! Where else do you keep the bag clips, scissors, tape, stickers, pens, and tools you need to access frequently? If you have the space, rev-a-shelf makes this remarkable two tier organizer for drawers as well.
But did you know there are also peg systems for storing dishes and glasses in deeper drawers? Very handy if you don’t have many upper cabinets OR you want people who can’t reach upper cabinets to be able to access them.
Stacks of dishes can be heavy to lift up and down from above shoulder level, so a drawer is easier and less strain for a lot of people.
Think of the possibilities - your minions (children/grandchildren) could unload the dishwasher for you so easily, or set the table without climbing on the counters!
In addition to dowels to create dish compartments, these pegboard inserts also have metal pot and lid storage dividers that fit them. Very versatile!
Drawer inserts are useful everywhere! Use them to organize a jewelry drawer like these from our dressing room project, or to streamline storage in desk or dresser drawers.
Organizer bins and containers
Streamlining things with containers always makes for more efficiency and maximizes storage space. Random boxes and bags in varying sizes (and always much larger than the actual contents!) take up way more space than things decanted into rectangular containers.
We reorganized a shelf lined step-in pantry closet a few years ago with these streamlined and stackable clear labeled containers, and it has worked really well to store an amazing amount of stuff accessibly and know when something is running low.
Refrigerators and freezers are just temperature controlled cabinets and drawers so they too can benefit from bins that group items by category or containers to decant things like frozen vegetables and fruits.
This clever pullout refrigerator rotating shelf is an interesting option to avoid things going to the back of the fridge to die (guilty of way too many ‘fridge science experiments’ here!)
Measure your space and buy sizes that maximize every inch. I’ve used (similar to) these bins with handles and these tall bins to corral items in the freezers by type to make everything easy to find and access.
And I have to mention again theses terrific wedge shaped bins that perfectly maximize and organize the space on my new lazy susan corner cabinet insert.
Upper cabinets can also benefit from lazy susan turntables, though these do mean you waste a bit of space in the corner, you get access to everything easily without moving stuff from the front to get to the back, so altogether better!
Final notes
Think through exactly what you need to store. Plan in flexibility for the future. And measure twice (!) and read the descriptions carefully to be sure you get the right size for your cabinet or drawer!
With all these options, making your storage easy, accessible and efficient is a no-brainer!
