Organizing For Dummies

by Eileen Roth

  Buy duplicates of cleaning supplies you also use in other parts of the house — scouring powder, spray cleanser, disinfectant, glass cleaner — and keep the extra sets close to where you use them so that you can accomplish your task without a trip to the kitchen. You may welcome the time and effort saved and be more likely to do the good deed.

  To prevent unforeseen floods, keep your cleaning bucket under the kitchen sink pipes in case of leaks.

  Classifying Your Cabinets and Drawers

  Cabinets and drawers can attract clutter and make clatter. Nevertheless, properly classified, the secret space behind closed doors can be a cook’s best friend.

  Pots, pans, dishes, casseroles, and mixing bowls are usually best stored in stacks. Though retrieving an item at the bottom of a pile can be a major weight-lifting chore, so much space is saved that I recommend accepting stacks as a fact of life. Use racks with as many tiers as your shelf can accommodate to create stacks on top of stacks, making item removal and return much easier. Try the ones that expand to the height of your shelf for maximum stacking. Note that the skinny little legs of wire racks can only stand steady on a solid shelf, not on racked or grid shelving.

  Two-tiered lazy Susans waste horizontal space with their circular shape, but the extra vertical tier and easy spinning access may be worthwhile if reaching is a problem for you.

  Dishes: Serving centers

  Decide where to put dishes depending upon where and how often you access them. The closer you keep frequently used dishes to the dishwasher and/or dish drainer, the quicker you get them put away. On the other end of the equation, you’re well served to keep dishes close to where you usually use them — the stove for dinner plates, refrigerator for sandwich plates, and so on. Look for the best tradeoff between serving and stowing locations.

  There are matters of altitude to consider too. Save your lower cupboards for hefty pots and pans and place dishes on shelves above the counter. Heavy dinner plates work well on the lowest shelf of an upper cabinet, with salad and sandwich plates and bowls just above.

  Make more out of a tall shelf with a three-tiered coated wire rack like you see in Figure 5-3. Putting dinner plates on one tier, salad plates on another, and bowls on the third beats making one big stack and having to move the whole mountain every time you want something from the bottom.

  Figure 5-3: Tiered racks expand the space of any shelf and make for stable stacks.

  Photo courtesy of Stacks and Stacks.

  Glasses, cups, and mugs: Beverage center

  Most people get past one sorting criteria here: If you can drink out of it, the vessel goes in the beverage cupboard. After that, it’s the luck of the draw. If you ever courted disaster while reaching over a tall glass to grab a short one, you probably guessed that there is a better way.

  If you have children, consider putting glasses and tall cups at a kid-friendly height so you don’t have to be bothered every time a child wants a drink. Mugs can go higher up, because (unless you’re raising coffee hounds) kids only use them for the occasional hot chocolate.

  Make the organization of your glass cupboard crystal clear by starting with the shortest glasses on one side and working your way to the tallest on the other, in columns of the same height or glass type. No more fumbling toward the back for the glass you want. Again, if your cupboard is tall, a coated wire rack can double your usable space. Make sure the clearance between shelves accommodates your tallest glasses.

  Expanding your cupboard’s capacity by hanging coffee cups and mugs from hooks in the bottom of the shelf above is best for those with good hand-eye coordination. Otherwise you risk knocking a cup off its hook as you grab your favorite mug from the back.

  If there are no small kids to cater to, arranging your dishes and glasses all in a single cabinet enables you to set the table by opening only one door. Glasses are easily grabbed off the higher shelf, plates and bowls from the lower one — and dinner is served.

  Pots and pans: Cooking center

  Though modern metals technology has taken us a long way from the days of ten-ton cast iron skillets, pots and pans are still big and heavy. That’s why you want to think low when you consider cabinet space for cooking vessels. Lifting up is always easier than bringing down, and don’t forget to bend your knees.

  You don’t need access to pots and pans that only get occasional use — a big stockpot, the turkey roaster, specialty cake pans — so it’s a good thing that most kitchens have so many inconveniently located spots to keep them in. Put these items in the back of deep cupboards, wedged under the support bar, in the dark and awkward corner — anywhere you wouldn’t want to reach on a daily basis but don’t mind once in awhile.

  Remembering what you’ve got stored in hard-to-reach cabinets can be hard. Give your brain a break by posting a list of contents on the inside of the cabinet door.

  Once you divvy up the least-desirable space, put the rest of your pots and pans in the slots closest to their point of use. Skillets and saucepans can go in the bottom drawer of the stove, and baking sheets and cooling racks into a tall, narrow cabinet alongside. (If you don’t have such a cabinet, get a set of dividers designed to stand baking sheets and racks on end as you see in Figure 5-4.) Casseroles, baking dishes, mixing bowls, cutting boards, and cake and pie tins are conveniently stored under the food prep counter.

  To store lids space-efficiently, put one lid knob side down inside of your stack of pans, and then layer on another lid knob side up, like a sandwich. If your lids outnumber your stack-topping slots, get a rack to stand them on end as in Figure 5-4.

  Square edges align and round ones don’t, so the simple truth is that anything round wastes cabinet space. Choose square pans when you can.

  Skip hanging pots on the wall where they accumulate dust and grease, and you can spare yourself the trouble of washing them before cooking. You may also appreciate the cleaner look.

  Figure 5-4: A rack keeps lids or baking pans organized from smallest to largest.

  Get a step stool with two steps (three if you’re on the short side) to keep folded against a pantry or kitchen closet wall and put your highest cabinets within easy reach.

  The Drawer Doctor Is In

  Kitchen drawers can easily fall into disarray, with jumbled utensils and unsorted silverware getting in the way when you need a whisk to stir something on the stove or seek a salad fork. For drawers that do more, use the idea of work centers to create quick access to the tools for each type of task.

  The essential, five kitchen drawers are:

  Tableware center: Placed near the kitchen table, the tableware center drawer can include forks, spoons, table knives, and serving pieces.

  Baking and prep utensil center: Located near the counter and cutting board, the baking and prep utensil center should include measuring cups and spoons, mixing spoons, rubber scrapers, whisks, rolling pin, beaters, hand can opener, vegetable peeler, apple corer, garlic press, zester, egg separator, grater, food processor discs, strainer, and kitchen shears.

  Cooking utensil center: Near the stove is the spot for the cooking utensil center, including spatulas, tongs, meat fork, ladle, slotted spoon, ther-mometers, potato masher, baster, and gravy separator.

  Utensils can stay cleaner inside a drawer — but if you simply don’t have room, use a utensil stand on the counter by the stove instead.

  Linen center: Designate a drawer near the stove for potholders, mitts, kitchen towels, and cloths. No linen drawer? Hang your dishtowel on the oven bar and potholders from hooks on a wall above or near the stove. Keep extras in a pantry or cabinet shelf.

  Office supply center: Freezer marker, masking and transparent tape, pens and pencils, scissors, ruler, stapler.

  If you have a few more kitchen drawers

  If you’re blessed with a decadence of drawers and have more to spare, here are some other ideas:

  Knife center: Chopping, slicing, paring, and steak knives can go here.

  If
you have small children, skip the countertop knife block and keep everything sharp put away in a drawer instead. Safety locks can keep small ones out of dangerous places such as a drawer full of knives or a cupboard with household cleaners and chemicals.

  Wrap center: Aluminum foil, plastic wrap, wax paper, storage bags, and twist ties.

  Coupon, box top, and proof-of-purchase center: Keep these items only if you redeem them regularly; otherwise, they count as clutter and should go. (Read on for hints on coping with coupons.)

  Basic tool center: Screwdriver, hammer, nails, and pliers. You can add tools to your office supply center if you don’t have a separate drawer to dedicate. Move tools to a high cabinet if you have young children who may hurt themselves.

  Divide, conquer, and contain

  Once you have the right things in the right drawers, divide and conquer. Free-form drawers waste time and try your patience as you sort through in search of what you need — so measure your drawers, take stock of the size of the various items in them, and hit the store in search of dividers. Look for sections tailored to the length and width of the various things you store: standard tableware, measuring cups and spoons, gadgets, long knives, cooking utensils. Take advantage of the opportunity to give the insides of your drawers a good wipe-down before installing your new dividers. The doctor is in!

  Don’t buy dividers with slots molded to specific shapes, such as spoons. They limit your flexibility and drawer capacity. Get ultra-organized with the new self-adhesive section dividers that allow you to design the space to your needs.

  Sectioning Off Your Pantry

  The pantry has primal meaning for most of us. We worry that if old Mother Hubbard goes to the cupboard she’ll find it bare — but more likely she may come across a crowded, topsy-turvy place nonconducive to putting dinner on the table or grabbing a snack.

  Think of every visit to the pantry like a trip to the supermarket: You’re shopping for what you need right now. Stores help you find things by arranging shelves by like type and making all items easy to access. You can do it too. To put your pantry in the pink, use these eight great pantry sections:

  Baking: Sugars, flour, oatmeal, cornmeal, mixes (cake, brownie, pancake, muffin), baking powder and soda, salt, extracts, oil, shortening, chips, chocolate, pie fillings

  Cereal: Hot and cold breakfast cereals

  Pasta and grains: Dried pasta, noodles, rice, rice mixes, other grains, potato mixes, bread crumbs, stuffing

  Canned fruits and vegetables: Fruits, vegetables, applesauce, tomatoes, tomato sauce and paste, beans

  Canned soup, entrees, meat, and fish: Soup, broth, pasta, chili, tuna, salmon, chicken

  Condiments: Mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, salad dressings, vinegar, sauces (marinara, hot sauce, barbeque, steak, chili, cocktail, soy, Worcestershire, salsa, and so on), peanut butter, jam and jelly

  Snacks: Chips, crackers, pretzels, rice cakes, cookies, ice-cream cones

  Drinks: Coffee, tea, iced tea, hot chocolate, powdered creamers, sweeteners, drink mixes, soda, canned drinks, juice boxes, bottled water

  I’ve seen too many pantry shelves succumb to the pressure of supersized foods and cases of soda. Avoid shelf sag or even breakage by putting your heaviest items on the floor or near support bars, and splitting up cans and jars. For instance, put fruits and vegetables on one shelf, canned soups and pastas on another, and condiments on a third.

  Above-below: First group each of the eight pantry sections on vertically adjacent shelves. For instance, you may place flour and sugar on the shelf directly above boxed mixes, chocolate chips, and other baking needs. The two-shelf approach helps compact the space for each section and distribute weight more evenly.

  Front-to-back: Next, put the tallest items at the back of the shelf and the shortest in front. That means tall cake mixes line up against the back wall while pudding, gelatin, shortening, and nuts go in front. You can also use step shelves to add different levels to your front-back arrangements, as you see in Figure 5-5.

  Figure 5-5: Step shelves keep jars, cans, or your spice collection from playing hide-and-seek.

  Reconfiguring the Refrigerator and Freezer

  Whether a science project in the vegetable drawer or a mystery package on the back of the shelf, the fridge can get scary fast. Fight the fear with some basic configuration.

  Five steps to a reconfigured fridge

  Like the pantry (but colder), the ideal refrigerator is arranged in supermarket- type sections with the taller items in back. You can adjust the height of most refrigerator shelves to accommodate your items without wasting space. But, you protest, I’d have to take everything out and start over! Yep. That’s exactly what you need to do. (It’s a great time to clean it out too.)

  The following steps can take you to a cleaner, more organized refrigerator:

  1.Take it all out: Pull up a trash bag and take everything out of the refrigerator, tossing fuzzy and old things as you go. Haven’t used that mustard in a year? Goodbye! Give the whole thing a good swipe with a soapy sponge. Add an open box of baking soda to soak up refrigerator odors.

  2. Start with the obvious: Fruits and vegetables go in the bins — fruits on one side, vegetables on the other — cheese and deli items in the drawer if you have one, butter and cream cheese in the butter compartment, and eggs in the little indentations in the door.

  If you don’t go through eggs quickly, keep them in their carton instead of on the door. The carton blocks air and food odors to keep eggs fresh longer.

  3. Stock the door: Fill the door shelves with smaller items grouped by like type — salad dressings, mustards, sauces, jams and jellies, and so on. Soda or milk up to quart size can go in taller door shelves; superspacious doors can handle liters or even gallons. The door is also a convenient spot for a carton of half-and-half or creamer for splashing into coffee.

  4. Work from the top: The top shelf is the tallest, so this is the place for drinks. Adjust the shelf to suit your tallest pitcher or bottle. If you have split shelves, you can shorten up the other half and put your most frequently used items there (usually dairy).

  Organize your bottles and cans with wire racks. Try the two-tiered type that sit on the shelf for soda cans, and a basket that hangs underneath for liter bottles lying on their sides.

  5. Group foods by type and arrange them for easy access: Look at what you have left to store and sort. Your sections may include:

  •Cooked foods and leftovers

  •Dairy products and eggs

  •Meat, poultry, and seafood

  •Condiments. For each group, gauge the maximum height and adjust the shelf height accordingly.

  Split shelf alert: A big sheet cake or lasagna waiting to hit the oven may not fit on a half-shelf. Get friendly with big foods by aligning at least one set of shelves to reach all the way across the fridge.

  The feng shui way to an enlightened kitchen

  The Chinese art of feng shui, using placement and other techniques to improve your life force energy, is clear on its view of the kitchen: The center of the home and the place where qi, or essential energy, begins. Feng shui advises that you paint your kitchen walls white to cool down the heat of the stove and clear out all traces of clutter to give energy room to flow. It’s nice to know that the ancient sages were organized too.

  Freezer freedom

  Now that you’re cooled off, dig into the deep freeze. The same principles apply in the freezer as in the fridge: You want supermarket-like sections that make items easy to find by type. Achieve this by clearing out the contents, sorting items into sections, and selecting the freezer spots that afford best access to each group.

  1. Toss the fossils: Anything you don’t recognize or remember or can’t see through the frost gets tossed.

  2. Section items off: Seven good freezer sections include: Meat, poultry, seafood, prepared entrees (store-bought or leftovers), sauces and side dishes, vegetables, juice c
oncentrates, breads, and desserts.

  3. Configure for access: Freezer setups vary depending upon whether you have an above-fridge, below-fridge, side-by-side, or stand-alone unit. Whatever yours is, if you don’t have enough shelves to make sense of your space, buy freestanding coated wire units with a few tiers. (Measure your freezer before shopping.) Next, arrange your food by section, with the items that you use most frequently closest at hand. Juice, breads, frozen vegetables, and desserts are often small enough to slip into door shelves.

  “Wrap and date” is the mantra that will keep your freezer straight and your food safe. Freeze anything you won’t use soon, in appropriate serving sizes. If that bargain pack of ground beef ends up wasted after thawing, you won’t save money. A pound-and-a-half or so (a quarter of a 5-pound package) is the right amount to freeze for a family of four, while singles may opt to make and freeze individual patties.