How to Organize Kitchen Cabinets

Tired of rummaging around in unruly cupboards? Outsmart cabinet chaos in a flash with our clever hacks and oh-so-simple how-to’s. Keep reading for our top five tips on how to organize kitchen cabinets today!

Maximize space with a quick twirl.

Jennifer Jones of I Heart Organizing took her corner kitchen cabinet from cluttered to curated with DIY turntables, using 18” wood circles and lazy Susan hardware from Home Depot. “I painted the edges white, topped them with contact paper and added drawer hardware for handles,” she says. “They make everything easy to grab with a twirl!”

Find her easy how-to here or get ready-made Lazy Susans at Amazon.

Stash pans with lid racks.

Gone are the days of clanging and restacking as you try to pull out a baking pan at the bottom of a pile in your cabinet, promises Sara Bereika of Abundance Organizing. “Just use pot lid organizers to hold pans and cookie sheets,” she advises.“The organizers allow you to store items vertically, letting you see — and easily access — all of your options.”

Streamline under-sink cleaners with a towel rod.

If you’re like us, the cabinet under your kitchen sink is teeming with hard-to-reach cleaners. The fix: “Just hang an over-the-cabinet towel rod,” says Susan Stevenson of HomeRoad.net. “Hang cleaners from their nozzles on the bar and close the door — you barely see the bar when the door is closed!”

One option: iDesign Over-the-Cabinet Towel Bar, $6.19, Amazon.

Corral gadgets with a file organizer.

There’s nothing Bereika hates more than unruly cords. So instead of storing laptops, iPads and tablets in a drawer or cabinet — only to find they’ve have merged into one “uber” tangle — she advises using a vertical file organizer to corral devices. Says Bereika, “This simple system becomes your own personal ‘device library.’ ”

See all your spices with a mini ‘shelf.’

Endlessly versatile, the tension rod is a bit of a misnomer because it actually takes the tension out of organizing, says Bereika. “Simply use one to create a mini ‘shelf ’ for spices in your cabinet,” she suggests. “Place small containers on top of the rod like little soldiers and bigger bottles below to double the usable space.”

This story originally appeared in our print magazine.