A Peek Inside My Kitchen Cabinets

How-to tip to organize pots and pans so they don’t get scratched in your kitchen cabinets.

Like many of you at this time of year, I have been purging items I no longer need and organizing areas around my home.  January it seems is the perfect time to do this since most of us our house bound.

After making over the small pantry closet, I got the energy to delve into the contents of my kitchen cabinets, especially the base cabinets.

Two years ago when we moved into the house, I literally just placed “like” items into the cabinets thinking I would re-organize them once we were officially all moved in.  That never happened.

I finally found the time on a cold wintery afternoon earlier this month.  A perfect time to get something inside the house done. Completing the task also made me feel somewhat upbeat and productive since the cold weather has getting comfy on the sofa under a warm throw blanket a far more appealing past time.

Organizing the contents of your kitchen cabinets is an easy and very rewarding project that can be done in an afternoon. It is a project that won’t cost you anything either, unless of course you want to buy a few handy storage and organizing racks.

The insides of my kitchen cabinets are basic, nothing fancy about them. They are made of plywood. You can read how I painted the exterior of the cabinets in this post, How to Paint Kitchen Cabinets.  As you can see I did not paint the inside, just the inside of each door.

This base cabinet under the peninsula section of the counter has 4 doors, 2 open on each side making it one very handy and easy to access kitchen storage place.

There are all sorts of inexpensive wire shelves and storage racks that you can add to create more storage to use every inch of your cabinet space.  I thought about adding a few of these, but my base cabinets are deep and I opted to keep things simple since I don’t have a ton of items to organize anymore. Purging the un-needed feels so good.

Here is What I Did to Organize the Contents of My Kitchen Cabinets

1. I purged what I no longer needed along with items I have not used in a long time. If you use something only once a year, consider storing it on a shelf in the garage or another area that is easy to get to, but won’t take up valuable room in a kitchen cabinet. I placed all the unwanted items in a box and put it in my car to take to the thrift store.
2. I scrubbed the inside of the cabinets. I used dish detergent to make a bucket full of hot sudsy water.
3. I placed items back inside by category with the most used items right up front so they are easy to grab when I need them.
4. I placed like items inside each other.  Trays, bowls, etc. to save room inside each cabinet. To keep them from getting chipped or damaged I place felt rounds in-between each. (See more on how I do this further down in the post)

Once you complete one section of cabinets, you will be inspired to take on more…

After I had the peninsula base cabinet purged, cleaned and re-organized, I moved over to the cabinets under the stove top where I keep my pots and pans.

The Jenn-Air cooktop/downdraft housing takes up a lot of room, but the cabinets are deep so I still have plenty of room to store my pots and pans.

I thought about covering the plywood with new white vinyl shelf paper, but decided I really didn’t need it. Maybe someday I will paint the back wall inside these cabinets, but for now, I just wanted to purge and re-organize.

I screwed in a cup-hook to the inside of the door to hang my oven mitts. Easy access to them while not taking up room in a drawer. I placed the cutting boards along the wall for easy access.  For me, I want the things I need on a daily basis, easy to get to and when done, easy to put back into the cabinets.

To keep the cabinet from getting crowded, I moved the larger flat items like cookie sheets and baking trays into the oven.  Saves a lot of space in the cabinets for other items.

I store my pots and pans inside each other with the largest on the bottom working up to the smallest on the top. To keep their surfaces from getting scratched or damaged, I cut out rounds from felt to place in between each pot/pan.

 

One round of felt in-between each pot…

…and each pan. You can’t see some of them, but there is one felt round in-between each pot/pan.

I use a wood rack to hold the lids for the pots.  I recently purchased a set of new pots and the lids are larger in depth than my previous pot lids. I just ordered another wood rack to place inside this cabinet so the new lids can be spread out and not have to be placed on top of each other.

How to Make Felt Rounds to Protect Pots and Pans

I make most of the felt rounds for my pots and pans using a dinner size plate as a template, but if you have larger pots and pans, use fabric yardage and the item itself you want to protect to make a custom sized shaped template. For instance, in my china closet, I made large rectangular felt shapes to place in-between all my serving trays. I used one of the trays as my template.

supplies needed:

• Felt squares or felt yardage
• Dinner plate to use as round template
• Marker
• Scissors

1. Lay a piece of felt that is as wide as a dinner plate on a flat surface. Place dinner plate upside down on felt and trace around it with a marker.

2. Cut circle out with scissors.

Place a felt round in-between each pot, pan, lid, or glass or ceramic dish to keep them from getting scratched or damaged.

How do you organize the items in your cabinets?  Any clever ideas you would like to share?