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Maximize Your Kitchen Storage

With these 11 tips, even the tiniest of kitchens can fully accommodate your needs. If you can’t tear down walls to add more shelves and cabinets, look to these ideas to make the most of your kitchen storage options.

When you open the cabinet door, the shelves behind pull out automatically so the back corner section is in view.
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Plenty of Cabinet Space

Multiple-shelf units, which vary by manufacturer, are engineering marvels for standard front-access cabinets. Here, when you open the door, the shelves directly behind it pull out automatically. The back section, normally housed in the corner, moves into view. You also can pull out those shelves to gain easy access to what’s in the back.

Tilting drawers, door racks, and stacking shelves can help maximize storage under the sink.
Courtesy of Sunset Books

Under the Sink

The space under the kitchen sink is a challenge. So many plumbing parts are in the way that it often becomes a dark cave. Look to tilting drawers, door racks, stacking shelves, and plastic buckets filled with cleaning supplies to bring order to your cabinet.

Dishes are divided by pegs in the drawer.
Courtesy of Sunset Books

Storing Dishes

Deciding how to store dishes and glassware isn’t an either/or proposition. You can combine several approaches and use them as part of your decorating scheme. In this kitchen, simple shelves hold plates and bowls, while cups hang from hooks on a rail. Glasses and other dishes are kept behind glass doors.

Sturdy wooden pegs keep dishes from hitting each other in drawers.
Courtesy of Sunset Books

In the Drawers

If you reserve the walls of your kitchen for windows or artwork, you may decide to store dishes in drawers. Sturdy wooden pegs, secured into holes in the base piece, keep dishes from knocking against each other every time you open or close the drawer.

Adjustable silverware organizers can fit in any space.
Courtesy of Sunset Books

Just Right

If you have drawers that are custom sizes, look for adjustable silverware organizers. The type shown here has parts that slide together. You also can find drawer dividers made of plastic and cut them to size with scissors.

Two drawers in a space keeps silverware separate from meal preparation tools.
Courtesy of Sunset Books

2 for 1

Piggybacking two drawers in the space of one allows you to keep different sets of silverware in one section and meal-preparation tools in the other. In the double drawer shown here, the top section slides on runners mounted inside the bottom drawer.

Drawer organizers with deep bins accommodate oversized handles.
Courtesy of Sunset Books

Big and Tall

If your silverware has oversized handles or if you have numerous pieces, look for drawer organizers with deep bins, or outfit the drawer with bread pans or other suitable containers.

A stainless steel jar holds cooking tools.
Courtesy of Sunset Books

Cooking Utensils

To store wooden spoons and other frequently used cooking tools, one of the easiest solutions also works best: Stash them in a wide canister that you leave next to the stove.

A rack that pulls down from cabinets is a good place to store knives.
Courtesy of Sunset Books

Knife Storage

This type of rack pulls down from the upper cabinet, a location that keeps knives where they are handy for a cook but beyond the reach of young children.

A narrow pullout rack between cabinets could store knives.
Courtesy of Sunset Books

Stacked Up

A narrow pullout knife rack can fit between cabinets. This space is often covered over with a filler strip rather than used for storage.

A knife block protects knives.
Courtesy of Sunset Books

On Hand

In homes with no small children, knives can be stored in kitchen drawers. The wooden knife block at the back of this drawer has a dozen thin slits, each designed to cradle a knife blade and prevent it from rattling against others. Combining knife storage and cutting surface is clever, provided you remember to extend the board over stored knives when you chop. Otherwise, bits of food will likely tumble down into the drawer.


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