5 Common Kitchen Organizing Mistakes to Avoid

By Alicia Geigel
As we have officially hit the 10-month marker of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s fair to say that most of us have adjusted to the new normal of life. Wearing masks outdoors, social distancing, sanitizing whenever possible, and quarantining at home has become less of a dreadful chore and more of an incorporated lifestyle.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, millions of people were displaced from their jobs and relocated to the comfort of their home to work, a home that has taken on a whole new meaning since the onset of the pandemic. While at home, most of us were (and are) constantly looking for new ways to satisfy our boredom. For some, it’s been binging every possible series on Netflix, engaging in crafts or completing head-scratching do-it-yourself projects, or perhaps even organizing those scary parts of home.

Though no one wants to take this newfound time at home organizing and tidying up, if you’re bored and it needs to be done, why not give it a shot? There are several different places of a person’s home that can be disorganized, but perhaps one of the most vulnerable and overlooked places to be disorganized is the kitchen. Cookware, spices, pantry items, junk drawers- it can all be too much to keep up with, especially when balancing working from home and dealing with responsibilities you otherwise would not have to!
Are you stuck at home looking for ways to better organize your kitchen space? Afraid that you’re not doing the best you can in terms of tidying up and decluttering? Here are five kitchen organizing mistakes to avoid and how to fix them!

1. Keeping Large, Clunky Items on Your Counter: Depending on the size of your home, you may or may not have a huge kitchen. Keeping large and clunky items on your counter, such as a stand mixer, air fryer, juicer, rice cooker, etc., only limits your space and makes it more difficult to properly store the items needed in your kitchen and on your countertop. If not being used regularly and with purpose, store these appliances under your counter in cabinets, in your pantry space, or in their original boxes until they need to be used. Though it may break your heart to store away a pretty Kitchen Aid mixer, if you only break it out to make your annual Christmas cookies, it’s not doing your counter space any good anyway.

2. Not Utilizing Vertical Storage: Part of the struggle of having cabinets is some of them are hard to reach, making us overfill and terribly organize the cabinets that we can reach. It’s just human nature to do this, but if you want to be smart about organizing your kitchen, it’s best to utilize your vertical storage as much as you can.

3. Having a Junk Drawer: For a lot of us, junk drawers are an absolute disaster that are to be avoided at all costs. However, this drawer horror story can be completely alleviated just by simply doing a few easy hacks! For instance, reuse an old shoebox to create dividers in your drawer and eliminate unnecessary clutter in your kitchen. You can also store kitchen utensils, cookware, dish towels, and other small essentials in drawers to eliminate clutter and create more space on countertops and tables!

4. Keeping Old Plastic Bags and Containers: Alright, raise your hand if you have a giant bag that stores tens or perhaps hundreds of smaller, disposable plastic bags from the grocery store in your home. Raise your hand if you have a place for disposable plastic containers from your favorite local restaurant. If both of your hands are up you are just like me and plenty of other people! There’s nothing wrong with wanting to reuse these items, but when they are slowly taking over your kitchen and overfilling your storage space, then it’s time to say goodbye. Consider using reusable, cloth grocery bags, and decreasing your collection to a more manageable size.

5. Forgetting to Take Advantage of Wall Space: When it comes to storage, I think most of us go the easy route of looking for cabinets or a pantry, but sometimes neglect to think about all the possibilities of wall space storage! To help organize your space, try adding floating shelves to the walls. Floating shelves look great wherever you place them, and, if you try adding the shelves around a focal point in your space, such as around your stove or nearby your cabinets, they can help tie the whole style together. With floating shelves, you don’t have to worry about where you’re going to store your pots and pans, various cookware, cookbooks, etc.!