Smart ideas for kitchen storage

The kitchen might be the busiest room in your house, but it needn’t be the most chaotic. We’ve chosen some of our favorite organization and storage ideas from kitchens around the world to help make your mealtimes easier and more enjoyable.

Walls

Glasses on display on a wire and glass shelf. There’s a plant in the foreground and a black tile wall in the background.

Open up storage

Make it easy for everyone to help themselves in the kitchen with open storage. Keeping crockery and glasses next to the dishwasher and sink makes restocking the shelves a much speedier process.

A window garden grows herbs and salad leaves directly behind the kitchen sink.

Grow a window garden

Even urban homes with no outdoor space can still have their own vegetable patch. Transform your windowsill into a mini kitchen garden and keep your pruning tools to hand in a hanging wire basket.

Knives and kitchen utensils stored on a magnetic rail mounted to the white tile wall in a kitchen.

Use the walls

Free up drawer space and start using the walls for extra storage. Stashing knives on a magnetic rack near your food preparation area is more convenient than having them all mixed up in a drawer.

Interior organisation

Overhead view of open kitchen drawers that reveal pots and pans, and lots of utensils in drawer inserts.

Keep everything you need to cook in drawers near the hob, and store the most frequently used items right at the top.

Side view of open kitchen drawers, filled with glass containers holding food.

Metal pots and their lids stacked neatly in an open kitchen drawer.

Stack your storage

Think about how best to store kitchen items before filling each drawer. Stack pans vertically and lids horizontally so that it’s easy to grab the size you need.

Two open base cabinets in the kitchen reveal wire baskets used to add storage.

Make smarter use of space

Increase the functionality of old kitchen cabinets by modifying them to make smarter use of space. If your cabinets are short on shelves, add wire baskets and plastic containers to keep the contents neat and well-organised.

Everyday routines

A hanging dish rack dries saucers, mugs and a plate next to the kitchen sink.

Hanging space

A drying rack doesn’t have to mean doubling the area the sink occupies. Hanging a rack from the wall saves on space and helps the air get to wet crockery.

A bird’s-eye view of a waste sorting drawer, designed to make recycling simpler.

Rethink your recycling

Get smart with rubbish and recycling storage. Choose different sizes and shapes of containers to suit different sorts of waste, and save on time spent sorting.

Extra on-the-go space

Add space to your kitchen with a portable trolley. Use it to store bulky items, or to wheel everything to the dining table in one go, rather than going back and forth.

Simplify table setting

Make it easier to set the table each day – create a one-stop station of everyday essentials, including crockery, cutlery and napkins.

Food storage

Transparent storage containers make it easy to see the grains and other dry goods in this kitchen cabinet.

Make it clear

Use transparent boxes and jars for food storage so that it’s easy to see where everything is – and to check what’s running low before you go to the supermarket.

Overhead view of an open kitchen drawer of dry goods. It’s segmented using shelf inserts and storage containers.

Height order

If your kitchen has deep drawers, use every bit of that height to store jars upright. Save your shallower drawers for items like cutlery or flat tins.

Overhead view of herbs stored in a drawer insert in a shallow kitchen drawer.

Space for spice

You don’t need a separate spice rack to store your dried herbs and spices. In fact, they’re best kept in the dark, so a drawer is the perfect spot to keep them.