5 Best Ways to Organize Messy Kitchen Cabinets (with steps)

Amaila Jabbar
4 min readSep 20, 2021

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A blank chef cartoon sitting on an antique open wooden kitchen cabinet with white plates and pots stacked.
Photo by Marco

A 2016 survey has suggested that a disorganized home can negatively affect your surroundings and subjective well-being.

Which is why you need some organizing to do especially in your kitchen. After waking up, it’s the first room you’re going to step in… besides going to the loo.

Also, you’re going to spend most of the time of your day preparing breakfast, lunches, snacks, and dinners in the kitchen. In order to cook freely and have an efficient workflow, it’s essential to sort it out.

At some point, you may have felt no matter how much you clean your kitchen, it doesn’t look neat when you enter it. I totally feel you!

Consider implementing these ways and feel the change in your everyday life. This article also includes DIYs for organizing cabinets.

1) Start decluttering

I know it is quite a hard task going through your overflowing cabinets but I really can’t stress enough how important is to declutter them. Decluttering will not only help with organizing your cabinets but also clears your mind and helps you become more productive. More mess at home will cause you more stress.

Prepare yourself to dig in the clutter and find what’s useful. If you do it once, you will cherish it for years to come.

Just follow these steps!

Step 1: Take a look inside your cabinets.

Step 2: Ask yourself these questions three times.

What item displeases you?

Do you even need it?

Are you planning to use it in 1 year?

You probably would have clear answers by now and made some decisions. Congrats!

Step 3: Now take out those old pots and pans. They were never meant to be used anyways. Give them away or best yet sell them. Who doesn’t need extra cash? Invest that money in buying new ones for your kitchen. Have a refreshing start!

2) Use rods in different ways

Tension rods can be placed vertically as well as horizontally for filing trays, plates, and serving platters. They’re very handy for the cabinet under your kitchen sink too. Hang the cleaning supplies on these rods and tada more space underneath!

If you have some spare bathroom and curtain rods in your house, you can use them too. Here’s how.

Step 1: For placing rods horizontally, measure the width of the cabinet. And height for placing it vertically.

Step 2: Cut the rod an inch greater than the actual size.

Step 3: Use any strong glue to attach the rods to the sides of the cabinet.

Pretty easy!

3) Lazy suzans to the rescue

Having your pantry stored in your kitchen cabinets can be such a hassle. You begin your cooking and reach out for the desired spice and suddenly you knock off the other items in the way.

Befriend lazy suzans because they're rotatable providing you easy access to all the items on them. Don’t want to buy one? You can make them at home with just an old fidget spinner.

Step 1: Cut out 3 circles from a foam in a size that is enough to cover the three arms on a fidget spinner.

Step 2: Use hot glue to stick the circles on the fidget spinner.

Step 3: Put hot glue in the centre of the fidget spinner and attach it to any round thing. Be it the plate, cardboard, wood etc.

4) Print on some labels

It’s so frustrating to open the jars every time you cook just to see what’s inside. This is what labels are for. Put labels onto everything where you can see them. It will save you a lot of time. Don’t like white background labels? You can make transparent ones at home!

Step 1: Choose your favourite calligraphy styles and the font in MS word.

Step 2: Print your labels on white paper in a laser printer and cut them out!

Step 3: Get transparent packing tape as it’s stickier than most of the other tapes. Gently put the tape onto the labels. It should be big enough to cover them.

Step 4: Use a spoon to press the labels onto the tape.

Step 5: Soak them in warm water for 5 minutes and start rubbing off the paper.

Step 6: Wait for them to dry and it should be sticky again. Use them to label your jars!

5) Arrange same things together

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Stack same-sized plates, serving platters, or bowls in your kitchen cabinets. They create a uniform image when you look at them. How pleasing!

Cereal boxes and other packaging material can create an awful sight as well. Empty the packets and put them in the same jars for the same uniform effect!

For creating a tidier look, use light color or soft pastels like lavender, white, pastel turquoise, and many more.

Or if like to go bold, you can customize your kitchen with bright colors too!

Kitchen cabinet organized with colorful plates, mugs and bowls.
Photo By Stasea Dohoney

Follow all the steps and organize your kitchen in no time!

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