The busiest room in most family homes is almost always the kitchen. Even a small kitchen nowadays has become a multi-purpose room for food prep, family meals, and entertaining. As well, it must serve as a storage room for the many appliances and all the dishes and cookware we seem to require, even on a modest scale.
Storage, especially in a small kitchen is always at a premium, but there are yet a few unexplored places that, with a clever designer or builder, can be transformed into effective dedicated storage.
Spices can be tricky to store as they come in so many different sizes – small cans, bottles, and oddly shaped containers that hide behind each other, and get lost in the back of the cupboard. one solution is a drawer insert.
Ikea carries several styles and sizes the fit your drawers like custom inserts, and hold all the spice bottles in neat rows tipped up to make reading the labels easier.
Another solution to the spice jar dilemma can be to install one set of narrow spice racks against the back of the door, and vertical pullout shelves with several tiers of spice racks that can be accessed from either side. Two or three will fit easily in a standard cupboard located near the food prep area, to solve your spice bottle problem both stylishly and neatly.
Spice drawer insert - photo from 2.bp.blogspot.com
Rather than installing regular cupboards under your cook-top, consider putting in drawers to hold your pots and pans. These heavy-duty drawers hold everything secure from rattling about, while keeping them handy to your cooking area.
Drawers like this are also great for storing your dishes, and make a nifty alternative to lifting them in and out of the cupboards. The inserts keep the dishes safe from sliding around, preventing chipping and cracking.
The narrow space beside your kitchen sink cupboard can be put to good use as well. That few inches of space can easily accommodate a pull-out towel rack, to keep your damp dish towels tidily out of sight while they’re drying between uses.
Looking for the perfect place to store those awkward cookie sheets and baking racks? Trying to get out the one you want – which always seems to be at the bottom of the stack – can be a noisy enterprise. Outfit a narrow cupboard with vertical dividers and the cookie sheets will slide right in, neatly storing them with nary a clank or bang.
Our kitchen boasts several knife collections, each in its own block. Counter space is at a premium, however, so, though we still want to protect the knife blades from nicks and scratches, we’ve found another solution
We created a narrow depth (3″ deep) knife drawer, outfitted with a magnetic strip to hold the blades in pace and prevent the nicks or chips that could otherwise occur. As the drawer is located under a butcher block cutting board, they are kept handy to the prep area.
Vertical spice drawer - photo from del-woodkitchens.com
If you have some lovely plates or antiques that you would love to display in your kitchen, but don’t have enough wall-space, don’t despair.
You can re-purpose the often wasted space above your cupboards for a beautiful display area.
Frame in the area in equal sections, and install some pot lights to create an effective display area for you collection.
By exercising some creativity, and finding some creative solutions to some storage issues, size need not be a deterrent to effectively storing everything you need.
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