Small Kitchen Storage Ideas For A More Efficient Space

Whether you proudly boast the most stylishly designed kitchen, or just have a vision of your dream kitchen, you should always have efficiency in mind. If you have too much or too little storage in the kitchen, you’ll be facing bottlenecks or wasted space that could make the kitchen a pain to work in - especially if you’re an avid party or dinner host. Let’s help you find some direction below with our small kitchen storage ideas for a more efficient space.

7 Small Kitchen Storage Ideas For A More Efficient Space

Here are some small kitchen storage ideas to help you save space for your cooking area:

1. Start With Your Kitchen’s Functions

Before you can begin implementing kitchen storage ideas to improve your space’s efficiency, you first need to focus on your kitchen’s functions.

This means that, depending on the types of meals you cook, or what you do in the kitchen, your requirements for storage will be different. If you’re often in the kitchen making lunches and breakfasts, you’ll need to have these types of foods stored front and centre.

However, if you’re almost never making breakfasts or lunches and mainly sticking to dinners, then you’ll likely want to create easy-to-access spaces for pots, pans and other appliances to make cooking dinner easier.

2. Move on to Pantry Optimisation

The average person’s pantry looks something like a grocery store aisle. Boxes upon boxes with no real way to reach the back, or find out if something is out of date or not. It’s time to improve on this.

We suggest starting by buying a whole collection of transparent containers, like the ones you find at Sistema. Work to move all of your cereals, pasta, and other dry foods into these containers and stack them in a way that gives you easy access to the foods you use most. In doing this, you’ll also have all of your dry foods sealed off from the humidity, keeping them fresh for longer.

A quick suggestion here is to look for the types of containers that you can easily stack on top of one another. Although most containers are stackable, there may be a few brands that don’t balance correctly, so definitely be sure to check on this before you purchase them. Stacking is always a better use of space.

3. Mull Over Open Shelving

If there’s one surefire way to create a kitchen that’s more efficient, it’s pulling the doors off all of your cabinets - or designing a new kitchen without them.

Open shelves won’t only stop you from having to guess where foods are, but they also mean you can just reach up and grab whatever you need. You’ll be able to see where everything is at all times and just move on with cooking whatever you’d like.

Another great perk of open shelving is you can also reach plates more easily too. That means when it’s time to plate your food or put your plates away after doing the dishes, there are no pesky cabinets to deal with each time.

For some help removing cabinet doors, take a look here.

5. Use Dividers Wherever You Can

One quick and easy way to make a space more efficient is to divide everything in the kitchen into groups.

Use dividers in your cutlery drawers along with your pot and pan drawers, spice drawers and anywhere else suitable. These are going to work wonders when it comes to stopping you and your family from jumbling through drawers for things. Everything will simply be front and centre, ready to grab.

There are even bloggers who have suggested - and shown - that using dividers in the fridge is a great idea to boost efficiency in the kitchen. Try your hand at splitting up all the foods in your fridge and you might notice a big jump in how quickly you’re able to find things when it comes time to start cooking.

6. Don’t Forget About Vertical Spaces

This is particularly important if you have a smaller kitchen. It’s important to make efficient use of every space in your kitchen for storage.

If you have cabinets that overhang your sink or workspaces, then spice them up with racks and rods to hang up your servingware. All of your essentials are now going to be within reach and visible at all times, saving you from searching for them when you need them most - like when something is burning on the stove.

To make this idea a little easier to implement, you can screw two hooks into the wooden kitchen wall above an empty space in the kitchen and attach a rod between them. This way you’ll have a quick ten-minute fix to your storage problems.

7. Store Everything Strategically

Lastly, our biggest tip links back to our first. You must determine how you best use your kitchen and store all of your foods, utensils, appliances and plates accordingly.

If you find yourself using a type of plate, cup or even an appliance often, then don’t shove it back down into the farthest part of the kitchen. Figure out a way to move it to the front so that you’re able to quickly get a hold of it when you need it.

The same goes for things you barely ever use - this also includes long-lasting foods - these all need to be moved back into the background of your kitchen to make way for the more important items.

Conclusion

With all of the above said, it’s certainly possible to redesign your kitchen and its storage to create a more efficient space, and quite easily too. There’s no need for you to spend thousands of dollars adding new, custom storage cabinetry to make your time in the kitchen easier, just a few deliberate changes will do the trick.