Updated: Dec 28, 2024 by Kris Jarrett

Kitchen Cabinet Storage Ideas

Looking for kitchen cabinet storage ideas? I’m sharing all of the storage and organization ideas packed into mine!

I LOVE smart storage and organization systems, especially in the kitchen. Having moved multiple times in the past twenty years with completely different kitchens designs in each home, I’ve figured out the kitchen cabinet storage ideas that work best.

Today I’m opening up my cabinets so you can see all of the kitchen cabinet storage ideas packed inside. Let’s get to it… (post includes commissionable links; for more information, see my full disclosure statement {here})

A simple way to organize your avalanche of cookie sheets and cutting boards is with dividers. Instead of stacking your sheets and boards on top of each other, store them on their sides with a divider between every 3-4 of them. One option is to use metal dividers like {these 18″ dividers} in my cabinets that are secured to the base and back of the cabinet:

Metal tray dividers separate cookie sheets and cutting boards so they stay upright and are easy to access! Super smart kitchen storage!

The dividers come individually so you can customize the number of dividers and the spacing between them to fit your needs. Installation is quick and easy with brackets that you screw into the base and back of the cabinet.

Want an even easier and less expensive option? Grab a free-standing rack such as {this rack} or {this rack} and just throw it into your cabinet! I had a similar one in my old kitchen and it worked great:

Organized baking sheets & pans on a divided metal rack in a kitchen cabinet

Rack Up Your Pans

Another favorite kitchen cabinet storage idea is to organize your pans with an organizer like {this pan rack}. You can use it in one of two ways including (1) standing it on it’s end like this:

Pan organizer rack to organize your kitchen cabinets

or (2) placing it on its side like this:

Metal rack to organize pans in your kitchen cabinet

This second arrangement can also work in a deep kitchen drawer and it can be used to organize pot lids too!

Create a Double Trash Can Pull-Out

When we remodeled the kitchen in our previous home, the pull-out trash can cabinet we added was one of my favorite kitchen cabinet storage solutions! For one, I love that it fits two of {these trash bins} so that you can use one for regular trash and one for recycling:

Pull-out kitchen trash can cabinet with two trash bins AND a built-in paper towel holder - I need this in my new kitchen!

And the built-in paper towel holder above the trash can compartment was amazing if you’re someone like me who hates having your paper towel roll cluttering up your countertops!

If you love this double trash can pull-out feature too, the good news is that you don’t have to do a complete kitchen remodel to add this feature in your own home! If you have a base cabinet that’s at least 15″ wide, you can transform it with {this double pull-out add-on}. I transformed this plain base cabinet in my sister’s kitchen:

Cabinet with trash can before double pull-out cans added

to this double pull-out using that exact add-on kit:

Double trash pull-out added to standard base cabinet

It included detailed instructions and a template, making installation straight-forward and pretty quick and easy (it took me about an hour to do).

Double Deck Your Cutlery

In my old kitchen, we had our silverware in a drawer with one of those inexpensive plastic silverware trays – it worked fine but left a good bit of drawer space unused. Our silverware is now housed in one of {these two-tiered cutlery dividers}:

Two tiered divided cutlery drawer - put your most used silverware on the top and have room for steak knives and other less commonly used cutlery on the bottom!

The top tray is on a track so it slides back to reveal a second level of storage space beneath it. I keep all of our everyday silverware in the top tray and then less frequently used cutlery like steak knives on the bottom. I love that you get double the storage space with the same sized drawer!

Group Your Foods with Pantry Bins

Do cans and boxes get pushed to the back of your pantry only to get found months after they’ve expired? Let’s get it organized with pantry bins:

In our pantry, these are the organizers I used:

Top Shelf: Four of {these large 6″ x 16″ x 5″ deep drawer bins}
Second Shelf: Three of {these 8″ x 11.25″ x 6″ pantry bins}
Third Shelf: Two of {these medium 4″ x 16″ x 5″ deep drawer bins} and two of {these revolving turntables/lazy Susans} for spices and cooking oils
Bottom Shelf: Two of {these woven baskets}

Check out my post on pantry organization ideas for more photos, details, and pantry organizing tips!

Use Smart Under-Sink Organizers

The space under our sink in our previous home had a lot of not-so-pretty things going on between all of the plumbing and the apron sink supports but I was able to get the most efficient use I could out of it with a few key organizers:

Love this idea for lighting up the inside of a cabinet! Install motion strip lighting so when the doors of the cabinet are opened, the battery-operated light illuminates what's inside! Perfect for under the sink!

I have all of my dishwashing tablets in {this penny candy jar} and to the right of it, I used {this lidded soda can organizer} to hold my dish scrubbers below and sponges and towels on top:

How I organize some of the space under our kitchen sink! A penny candy jar for detergent tabs and an acrylic organizer for scrub brushes, sponges, and towels!

Other Sources: Water bottle cleaning set | Stainless steel odor absorber bar | Walnut scrubber sponges

Another helpful under-sink organizer that I have in our current home is {this roll-out caddy} that holds a ton of stuff and rolls in and out easily:

Rolling organizer that pulls out from under the sink for storage of kitchen supplies

And I’ve got one last tip for your under-the-sink cabinets since they can be a bit of a dark hole. Mount a battery powered strip light such as {this one} inside the cabinet doors so any time you open them, it senses motion and the light illuminates everything inside.

Add Corner Drawers (Instead of a Lazy Susan!)

If you have a kitchen remodel in your future, I LOVE this kitchen cabinet storage solution! I’ve had other corner cabinet solutions in our previous homes including a lazy Susan in our first home and simple drawers on each side of the corner in our second home. But the corner drawer solution in our previous home is my favorite by far!

I had three corner drawers (one shallow and two deep) that fully extended so that you can access the entire drawer and make great use of the space. In the top drawer, I kept longer utensils in two of {these two 6″ x 15″ x 2″ shallow drawer organizers} in the back and shorter utensils in {this 6″ x 12″ x 2″ shallow drawer organizer} near the front:

Kitchen corner drawers - such smart use of the corner space in a kitchen!!

In the deeper bottom drawers I hd several of {these 6″ x 6″ x 6″ storage bins} that held my most often used spices, measuring cups, and a bunch of short utensils:

A super smart solution for using the corner space in a kitchen - kitchen corner drawers!

It’s a night and day difference from how my utensils were stored before, which was basically a single deep, impossible to sort through pile in a drawer that drove me (and my husband) nuts!

Add a Built-In Drawer Outlet

It seems that with every passing year, we have more and more products that require charging. If you want to keep your countertops as clutter free as possible, consider adding one of {these Docking Drawer outlets} to a drawer or two.

In our last kitchen we added a drawer outlet with USB ports to the back of the drawer under our Nespresso machine:

An outlet with USB ports is built into this kitchen drawer! Love having a hidden place to store electronics and plug in small kitchen appliances!

I especially loved being able to keep our iPad there so it stayed charged and ready to use for accessing recipes while cooking.

Hide a Pull-Out Tray

If you have any deep kitchen drawers or cabinets with unused space at the top, consider adding a pull-out tray like {this one} to create more usable storage space. I used mine to keep some basic desk supplies in my kitchen because it’s where I ended up filling out school papers, paying bills, etc. and the pull-out tray was perfect for that:

The perfect way to keep desk supplies in your kitchen! This island has a large drawer with a shallow roll out tray! So smart!

I organized the inside of the roll tray with {these Poppin desk supplies} and {these Poppin organizers} that come in multiple color options.

Check out my post on my hidden kitchen command center for more details!

Hide a Toe Kick Drawer

Another favorite feature to consider if you’re doing a kitchen remodel is a hidden toe kick drawer. When you take your foot and push it in, the drawer pops out, revealing a generously sized shallow drawer to store things like large trays that are usually hard to find a good home for in your kitchen:

A push on the toekick with your foot reveals a hidden toekick drawer with shallow storage space for trays and other large, hard to store kitchen items!

It would be a great place for storing cooking sheets and cutting boards too if you didn’t have room for them in one of your cabinets! It’s a smart cabinet storage solution for space that would otherwise go unused.

Get the Most Our of Your Toe Kick

Moving a little further down the toe kick space is one of my favorite features in the kitchen – a toe kick vacuum (it’s {this Sweepovac})! It turns on with a simple tap from my foot and sucks in everything you’ve swept up in my kitchen:

I would LOVE to have this in our kitchen! It's a built-in toekick vacuum that turns on with the simple tap of a foot! Saving this idea for our kitchen renovation!

How cool is that? I’ve found that using a dry microfiber mop with a swivel head such as {this one} works best for easily sweeping things to the vacuum without hitting the cabinetry above it. My toe kick vacuum doesn’t require a central vacuum line – the dirt and debris simply gets sucked into a vacuum bag that you change out occasionally just like you do with a normal vacuum bag. It was so nice not having to drag out my vacuum or broom and dustpan to sweep my floors and I found that I cleaned them much more often because it was so quick and easy!

And with that… this post is a wrap! So what do you think – do you have a favorite kitchen cabinet storage idea?

If you have questions about sources for anything else in my kitchen, be sure to check out my kitchen remodel before and after that has a detailed source list at the end. Also check out my favorite kitchen drawer organizers, favorite kitchen remodel ideas and favorite home organization ideas.

And if you love my kitchen remodel and want to get more room makeovers, DIYs, and organization projects delivered to your inbox, I’d love for you to subscribe by email – it’s typically just 1-2 posts per week and you can unsubscribe at any time! CLICK {HERE} TO SUBSCRIBE!

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

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