Much of what I have to write about having an organized kitchen will be common sense and no surprise. But I also bet that many people have an unorganized kitchen, by default, because when we move into a new home, many people shove things in the nearest cabinet or drawer, just to get things out of the way and done with. Ever have that experience where you were looking for the vanilla extract and didn’t know if you had any? Ever waste time looking for the bottle opener or the ice cream scooper? We’ve all had that experience of looking in every single drawer to find a missing item.

The kitchen is one of the most important areas of the house, we spend more time there than even in the dining room or other rooms. It is also the one place that probably has the biggest variety of things in it.

Cookware
Most people get a set of cookware at some point or another, if not as a wedding gift, then hand-me-downs. We get pots and pans in several sizes. And the reality is that most of us use the same pot and pan daily, with other sizes hardly used at all. Hell, a lot of people don’t even cook anymore!

Having different sized pots and pans can be very practical and allow you to cook more than one item at a time on the stove, but if you are not doing that type of cooking, then you can store the extra pots and pans in a more “inconvenient” location, until you actually need them, such as once a year for entertaining. It makes sense to have your pots and pans in the cupboard closest to the stove. If you are a single person who only cooks for yourself, you may find that one pan and one pot will suffice. And on that note, you would choose the larger pot or pan to work with because you can’t really go wrong. Having too much food for a smaller pot or pan is the problem, not the other way around. Many cooks love their cast iron pan and use it exclusively.

If you have a “cook’s kitchen” and the style of it begs for hanging the pots and pans, out on display, go for it. There are no feng shui edicts about having to put everything away and out of sight. In fact, a kitchen that appears to be used for a lot of home cooking is a very relaxing and inviting space, compared to a sterile looking kitchen that could get confused for a doctor’s lab.

Utensils
It makes sense to place all your daily utensils in one drawer and fancier silverware and accessories in another drawer. Ladles and skewers, corn cob prongs and things used less often can be grouped together in another drawer. It makes sense to have the utensils you use frequently in a drawer that is closest to the sink or dishwasher. One principle of being organized is to make it easier on yourself and keep the things close to you that you use most often and with each other. This is one reason why newer home designs have placed the washer-dryer closet or laundry room closer to the bedrooms, which is where the clothes will ultimately go. Older home designs used to always have the laundry room far away from the bedrooms, sometimes even in a garage. So, likewise, with a kitchen, the things you use the most should be the most conveniently located.

I even store baking trays and loaf pans in my oven. For all practical purposes, the oven racks are shelves. When I use the oven, I just pull out the light weight cookie trays and steel pans and use what I need for baking at that time. The other trays can sit on the counter while I’m using one or two of them, although technically, there would not be any crime committed by leaving some of them in the oven. I just know that would splatter food and juices onto the unused trays. Someone once asked me if it was bad feng shui to store baking pans in the oven and the answer is NO.

Appliances
A kitchen will have big and small appliances. The big ones, such as the fridge and stove are staying put and not in need of any discussion when it comes to organizing. Although, I am sure there is some kind of “zen of refrigerator arrangement,” but the food is always changing, so it is not the same as your basic kitchen supplies. My only intentional method of arranging things in the fridge is to put certain items in front that I want my family members to notice, so that certain foods don’t go bad. I don’t mind reaching back into the fridge to get things, but some people only see what is right in front of them and don’t think to forage around in a fridge.

The smaller appliances include a toaster-oven, blender, coffee maker and microwave. It makes no sense to “hide” a blender or other items you use on a daily or even weekly basis. Obviously, you can keep the waffle iron or the George Foreman grill in a cupboard if they are not used even weekly. But if you have a coffee maker or any appliance that gets a lot of use, that is what kitchen counters are for.

I do have to interject that a microwave oven should be used as little as possible. If you can heat something up on the stove in a few minutes, then that would be much better for your health than to “nuke” your food for 30 seconds. The whole molecular structure of the food gets scrambled in the microwave process and it becomes “dead” food. The microwave not only kills much of the nutrients, it can make the food really harmful to consume. On top of that, just the EMF’s emanating from the microwave can do some damage to your health also. You may want to research this yourself. I sometimes worry that they are micro-waving my food at the back of the restaurant, out of sight.

The Junk Drawer
Most Professional Organizers shun a “junk drawer” because it often represents a space where random things collect, including things that should be dealt with in a more efficient way. A junk drawer should not be confused with a drawer where you consciously have a miscellaneous collection of things you don’t use regularly. You just might need a drawer for those kinds of things. I have one drawer in the kitchen with a few boxes of matches, some candles, rubber bands, some warranty and instruction manuals and a few other small items. I don’t consider it junk. It’s just stuff I rarely use, but need. Some of the things I rarely use are part of my Earthquake-Disaster supplies and I absolutely do not consider those items “junk.”

Entertaining Items
I used to do a lot more entertaining than I do now. And there were parties that justified getting a 45-cup hot water dispenser and a punch bowl and a few other bulky items, which now only get used once every few years. If I were lacking in space, I would have no problem at all getting rid of those items, and will gladly do so one day when I downsize. But for the time being, I do have the room for these kitchen-entertaining supplies and will keep them on the highest shelves, in the highest cupboard, leaving the more convenient spaces for things I use regularly. These are items which can always be rented for a large party.

Storage Items
I keep my honey jar inside an air tight sealed acrylic container so that it does not attract ants. Same with the opened cereal boxes, grains and beans. This can be more efficient than just tying a “twisty” around an open bag because you can also stack one container on top of another. And on that note, square or rectangular containers are going to be more space efficient than round containers and Tuppeware pieces. The round items cannot be grouped as closely together and they create some unusable space with their round shape.

Clear storage containers are also sensible so that you can easily see at a glance what is inside. This is another reason why I don’t save yogurt containers or other tempting pieces of plastic, if they are not clear.
I do keep some fine china and crystal goblets in padded storage containers, designed for delicate, breakable items and I keep some very heavy breakables on the lowest shelves in my kitchen. I grew up in earthquake territory and was trained at a young age to think about things flying off of shelves.

Food
Just like non-food items in your kitchen, it makes sense to store the foods you use the most on the shelves that are most convenient to reach for. And you may want to group certain ingredients together. I put canned tomato paste next to the marina sauce jars, since they are so similar in their uses. One might keep pasta in the same location, but I keep so much pasta on hand that it gets its own shelf.

You can group certain foods together because they are usually prepared together or used equally, such as storing the peanut butter jars next to the jam jars, etc. And of course, I like to keep multiples of just about everything because I never like to have to run to the store for one thing. I also like to keep plenty of staples on hand in case of emergencies. I have other organizational musings about how to stock your home for disaster preparedness. I think you should store as much as food as you have space for and in sync with how easily you can rotate the foods, so that they don’t expire before you have a chance to use them.

Supplements
Vitamin and nutritional supplements can take up a lot of space on a counter, but these are the items we often use daily. If you have a “pharmacy” going with your supplements, you might want to create pill packs for one or two weeks and then store the actual supplement bottles, out of sight.

Counter Tops
Clean, exposed counter tops can have their own beauty to look at, especially with so many interesting counter top materials made today. Many of us don’t like to cover them up with appliances and food storage. A kitchen will look cleaner and bigger when there isn’t much on the counters and that is just a fact. But the style and design of many accessories can be nice to look at too, such as a beautiful exotic wood cutting board or a mug tree.

I think that with an organized kitchen, you can enjoy a middle ground where you have some needed items on the counters and much of what you need stored away behind the cupboard doors, but still conveniently organized. Over the years, many storage container stores have popped up with all kinds of items to help people organize their kitchen stuff, above and beyond spice racks and eating utensils.

Floor
There is no good or bad type of conventional flooring when it comes to Feng Shui or Organizing. Some prefer the ease of care with concrete floors, while others may want something easier on the feet, like wood flooring. Laminates abound and there are many choices now for easy-to-care-for surfaces. We have pets in my household, so the floors get disinfected almost nightly.

One litmus test for an organized kitchen, or any room, is the ease in which someone besides yourself could locate things and share in the meal preparation.

Author: Kartar Diamond
Company: Feng Shui Solutions (R) Since 1992
From the Tao of Organizing Blog Series