Cleanup time: How to create an organized kitchen, once and for all

For The Union-Tribune

There’s always a bit of a letdown following the holidays. But simultaneously, a new year spurs us to make changes in various aspects of our lives, whether it’s committing to a regular exercise routine, improving our diet or reading more books. Yep, we’re talking New Year’s resolutions. And now that holiday entertaining is behind us, we can take a hard look at the kitchen and figure out how to make it easier and more enjoyable to make big meals, bake dozens of cookies or just more efficiently feed ourselves daily.

In other words, how about resolving to better organize your kitchen?

If you’re fortunate enough to be about to embark on a kitchen remodel, you have the opportunity to set up your kitchen just the way you want it. Are you a baker? You could come up with a design for a complete baking station, with stand mixer, food processor and blender corralled in one area, perhaps in a head-to-toe cupboard, with pull-out shelves for baking sheets, muffin tins and cake pans on one shelf, and bowls, measuring cups, parchment paper and proofing baskets on another.

Or perhaps you have a very small kitchen and need innovative ways to easily access items you use regularly while creating storage for necessary but less used items.

Everyone has unique ways they work in their kitchen, so the best way to start, suggested interior designer Vallerie Dalrymple, co-owner of The Designers Firm, is to identify how you use the space.

“When we begin any kitchen design, the very first thing we do is ask our clients detailed questions about how they actually use their space — is it a busy family kitchen, do they entertain often, is it for a short-term rental, or a combination of all three?” she said. “The kitchen truly is the hub of the home, and like any space, it has to be practical and functional first. The ‘pretty’ always comes at the end — but I assure you, the pretty will absolutely be there!”

Dalrymple has another group of questions to ask: Is this your forever home? Do you ever rent it out? Are you renting it for either long-term or short-term? The answers can help determine what kind of money you want to invest to make changes and what types of changes you make.

The goal, she said, is to make the kitchen feel personalized, intuitive and beautifully efficient.

Organizing without a plan is one of the most common mistakes people make, said the team of organizers at The Container Store. This group of experts offered a number of tips for people interested in tackling kitchen organization. Like Dalrymple, they recommended first understanding your cooking habits, daily routines and workflow before making changes.

As you get started, consider how to create functional zones within your kitchen. Think about grouping by tasks, such as cooking, baking prep and cleaning. If you just store random items around the kitchen, it will be inefficient and frustrating to use. Instead, group items by function and the proximity to relevant appliances.

Can you see what you have? It’s not uncommon to go into a sumptuously designed kitchen and find it so sleek, you’d never know people actually cook in there. But even if there’s nothing on the counter but a vase of flowers, remember there is storage — in pantries and cabinets — and those items can be contained in baskets, on a lazy Susan, elevated racks and in clear containers on pullout drawers. That storage could turn out to be money-saving. How many times have you bought groceries like rice or pasta only to discover that you still had some at home? You just couldn’t see them in all the hidden clutter.

Speaking of which, go through everything and get rid of duplicates, The Container Store organizers said. Get rid of expired pantry items. Donate gadgets you don’t use. And as someone with little kitchen storage, I recommend moving items you perhaps use annually — like holiday cookie cutters or roasting pans — out of the daily use zones and to a well-marked spot elsewhere. If you have an available cabinet in your garage, you can create a “butler’s pantry” to store those types of things you want to keep but rarely use. Again, evaluate your activities and eliminate the clutter to recapture space and, more important, an efficient work area.

Where is everything? Depending on your kitchen’s available cabinetry, ideally you should store items near related appliances, the organizers suggested. So, you want dishes and glasses near a dishwasher and pots and pans and utensils near stoves.

A great example of this are the narrow pullout drawers that designers have been installing alongside stoves. These can be outfitted to hold spices, but also utensils, sheet pans, serving trays, pot lids and condiments (including oils, which are best stored in dark spaces to keep from deteriorating).

That same shaped area can also hold a kitchen necessity many people don’t know where to store: a step stool. Designer Robin Kelley of Your Nest by Design has added this for clients.

“I have had a few clients over the years that needed to plan for an accessible step stool in their kitchen, so that those higher storage areas aren’t as inaccessible day to day,” she explained. “For one project, we designed a custom cabinet for the step stool.  And balanced the design with another matching cabinet flanking the wine/beverage storage fridge.  Trays can fit in that one.”

Hate the look of built-in small appliances? Kelley de-emphasizes things like built-in microwaves in appliance garages, cabinets or pantries.

“With many small appliances not lasting as long as they used to, doing built-ins seems unwise,” she noted. “And there is always a new gadget or technology. So having a place where small appliances can be used easily, but also replaced easily, is wise.”

If you don’t mind having some appliances on the counter, keep the clutter down by limiting them to just those you use daily — a coffee maker or water boiler and a toaster or toaster oven may be enough. It will increase your counter workspace.

If you have a pantry, consider yourself lucky. But you can’t just toss stuff in there randomly and expect to have the best experience. The Container Store organizers suggested, of course, again editing for expired or unused items, then grouping items by categories, such as baking supplies, oils and vinegars, condiments, snacks and breakfast foods. Your goal is ease of finding and taking out/putting back in what you need. That will help with overbuying as well.

Some of us have lived in kitchens so small, we’ve had to be creative with vertical spaces, whether they’re a backsplash, the side of a refrigerator, the back of a door or the wall behind a stove. Instead of putting knives in what may be the precious real estate of a drawer, install a knife magnet on a wall or the side of a refrigerator. Hang ladles or mugs from a wall rack with hooks. Put up floating shelves to hold glasses or often-used condiments. Install a wire door rack with adjustable baskets on the inside of a small pantry’s door to hold groups of small items like canned fish, soups, baking ingredients and soda.

So, what are some of the best tools you can use to achieve kitchen organization? Even if you can’t remodel, there are some great affordable resources that can result in you actually looking forward to cooking or baking.

• Inspect your cabinets. If you store your dishes and glasses/mugs in upper cabinets, use expandable shelves to maximize the space. Create a pantry-style space with tiered shelf risers, a lazy Susan or clear, open-front bins. Lower cabinets can house pots and pans, small appliances and serving dishes. If your cabinet shelves don’t already roll out, find a business that can install them or buy roll-out cabinet drawers. There are cookware racks you can place inside so you don’t have to lift several heavy cast-iron pans to get to that big one on the bottom. Look for tray dividers or roll-out bakeware organizers to make it easier to access sheet pans, cupcake pans or cutting boards.

• Have a corner cabinet that seems useless? There’s a fix for that. Create usable space with a lazy Susan or check out blind corner accessories by a company Dalrymple loves to use, Rev-a-Shelf, which has a variety of pivot, pull and slide options.

• Drawers can be versatile — storing everything from utensils to prep tools and gadgets to spices — but it can be challenging for them to not turn into the ubiquitous junk drawer. There are plenty of drawer organizers out there. Just evaluate what you need to store and buy the appropriate dividers or, if you have deep drawers, tiered drawer boxes.

• Pantry storage can be dreamily abundant. A good-sized pantry can be just the right place to keep an air fryer, pressure cooker, slower cooker or popcorn popper — perhaps on the floor tucked below the bottom shelf. If your small appliances don’t store their cords, invest in cable organizers that you stick onto the appliance. That’s a game changer. For everything else in the pantry, invest in clear, stackable storage containers and label them. Baskets can hold collections of cereal or grains. If you have kids, you can fill a basket with snacks at a level they can reach.

Remember, the idea is creating a space that instead of frustrating you invites you in to prepare food with ease and confidence — even joy. As your life evolves, you may have to do some tweaking to keep your kitchen working for you. But the goal, as The Container Store organizers emphasized, is to improve visibility, prevent overbuying and keep your kitchen easy to maintain.