Cabinet Storage & Organization Ideas From Our New Kitchen!

It’s been so much fun to share the details of our kitchen renovation with you guys over the past few weeks but you still haven’t seen one of my favorite things about it – the behind-the-scenes (or actually behind-the-cabinets 🙂 ) storage and organizational features! I LOVE smart organization. Closet systems, desk organizers, labeled storage bins… you name it, if it’s something that’s organizing my home a little better, it makes me happy. Other than having a much larger pantry, my new kitchen has about the same amount of storage space as my previous one did but I can fit SO much more inside my cabinets because of the design of MasterBrand Cabinets’ Diamond line of cabinets along with the storage and organizational features packed inside. I’m so glad that I was able to partner with them for my kitchen renovation and am excited to be opening up my cabinet doors and drawers so you can see all of the reasons why. Let’s kick things off with the cabinet feature that I’ve gotten the most questions about… (post includes affiliate links – full disclosure statement available {here})

Kitchen Pull-Out Trash Can Cabinet + Built In Paper Towel Holder

The combination pull-out trash can + built in paper towel holder cabinet is one of my favorites! First off, I love that it fits two trash bins so that I can use one for regular trash and one for recycling. In my old kitchen, every time that I wanted to recycle something I had to walk out to the garage to throw it in the recycling bin there so this is definitely a much-loved change! 

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And the built-in paper towel holder above the trash can compartment is amazing if you’re someone like me who hates having your paper towel roll cluttering up your countertops! I’ve had several questions about whether the paper towel compartment is separate from the trash compartment so thought I’d share this view of it open – as you can tell, there is a divider between the two so the bottom of the paper towel roll is never going to touch the top of my trash:

The compartment holding the paper towel holder goes all the way back so there’s space to hold a few extra rolls of paper towels too! MasterBrand Cabinets also makes a similar garbage pull out + paper towel holder with a full height door that completely covers the paper towel compartment in case you don’t want your paper towel roll showing at all (you can see that option {here}). I feel like it would be a pain to have your paper towel roll holder behind a closed door but I can absolutely see using the full door cabinet to have a convenient yet hidden spot to store extra paper towel rolls and trash bags.

Two Tiered Divided Cutlery Drawer

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 MasterBrand Cabinets’ solid wood tiered cutlery dividers:

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 I get about double the storage space that I used to with the same sized drawer!

Pantry Cabinet with Pull Out Shelves and Organizers

One of the biggest luxuries of my new kitchen is having a much larger pantry! Deep pantries with fixed shelves can sometimes be a pain because you can’t easily see all of the way into the back but the pull out shelves allow you to fully see everything inside: 

Since the shelves have so much space, I’ve found it helpful to use pantry bins to keep everything organized and in place. I have four of {these 6″ x 16″ x 5″ deep drawer binz} on the top shelf, three of {these 8″ x 11.25″ x 6″ pantry binz} on the second shelf, and two of {these 4″ x 16″ x 5″ deep drawer binz} + two of {these revolving turntables/lazy Susans} for spices and cooking oils on the third shelf.

In-Cabinet Lighting with Motion Activated Strip Light

You know how the inside of some cabinets can be a bit of a dark hole? The Diamond line of cabinets had the perfect solution for lighting up that space without the need for electrical wiring. My sink base has a battery powered strip light that’s mounted right inside the doors so any time I open them, it senses motion and the light illuminates everything inside:

So clever! As you can see, the space under my sink has a lot of not-so-pretty things going on between the plumbing, apron sink supports, and hole cut in the bottom of it to access the toekick heater but I was able to squeeze in a few organizers to use the space as efficiently as I can. I have all of my dishwashing tablets in {this penny candy jar} and to the right of it I’m using {this lidded soda can organizer} to hold my dish scrubbers below and sponges and towels on top:

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Corner Drawers (Instead of a Lazy Susan!)

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 that left the entire corner space unused. The solution that MasterBrand Cabinets had for our current kitchen is by far my favorite – I have three corner drawers (one shallow and two deep) that fully extend so that you can access the entire drawer. So smart! In the top drawer I keep 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:

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

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!

Cookie Sheet / Cutting Board Cabinet Dividers

My cookie sheets and cutting boards are stored on their ends in the base cabinet to the left of our range – they are held upright by a series of metal dividers secured to the base and back of the cabinet:

The dividers come individually so I was able to customize the number of dividers and the spacing between them to fit my needs. And there’s a shallow shelf above them to take advantage of every last bit of cabinet space! You can do this to one of your cabinets by (1) getting chrome dividers similar to mine that you install with brackets screwed into on the bottom and back of the cabinet – these take a little more time but the plus is that you can choose the distance between the dividers – you find that type of divider {here} (2) for a super quick and easy solution, you can grab one of {these free-standing racks}and just throw it into your cabinet! I had this exact one in my old kitchen and it worked great!

Built-In Drawer Outlet + USB Port

We’ve always had a spot to charge phones and an iPad in our kitchen – previously it was {this family charging station} that used to sit on the shallow cabinetry next to our coffee station. In our new kitchen, I wanted to keep my countertops as clutter free as possible so instead we store those electronics in a drawer under our coffee maker that has a built-in drawer outlet with USB ports:

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I especially love being able to keep the iPad there since I use it for recipes while cooking. And if I want to keep more electronics in the drawer, I can just put a double USB plug into one of the outlets. I have plenty of outlets on my backsplash for small kitchen appliances but this would also be a great place to plug in something like a mixer! I also use this drawer as my hidden coffee station with three of {these 3″ high organizer bins} holding my Nespresso pods and one of {these more narrow bins} holding stir spoons. 

Drawers with Hidden Roll Tray

You’d never know until you start peeking in the drawers and looking at the toekick, but my kitchen island is a total workhorse – I don’t think there’s an inch of wasted space! You can’t tell by looking at it but the upper drawers of my island are actually two drawers in one. When you open them, there’s a shallow roll tray drawer for additional storage. I like to keep some basic desk supplies in my kitchen because it’s where I end up filling out school papers, paying bills, etc. and the roll tray is perfect for that:

I organized the inside of the roll tray with {these fun Poppin desk supplies} – I chose dark gray to go with my island color but they also make them in white and five other colors. (And by the way, you know how Hope is always finding her way into my pics? Did you see she made a cameo appearance in this one? 🙂 )

Hidden Toekick Drawer

It’s not at all apparent when closed but the toekick space under the center bank of  island drawers has a hidden toekick 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: 

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!

Toekick Vacuum 

Moving a little further down the toekick space is one of my favorite features in the kitchen – a toekick vacuum! It turns on with a simple tap from my foot and sucks in everything I’ve swept up in my kitchen:

How cool is that? I’ve found that using a dry microfiber mop with a swivel head (I have and love {this one}) works best for easily sweeping things to the vacuum without hitting the cabinetry above it. And there’s no central vacuum line or anything like that needed – 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’s so nice not having to drag out my vacuum or broom and dustpan to sweep my floors and I find that I clean them much more often now because it’s so quick and easy!

So what do you guys think – do you have a favorite? I’ll be sharing some of my favorite cabinet features in action and answering questions about them on Instagram Stories in the upcoming weeks so be sure to follow me on Instagram {here} if you aren’t already! If you have questions about sources for anything else in my kitchen, be sure to check out my kitchen reveal post {here}} that has a detailed source list at the end. 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 only 1-2 posts per week and you can unsubscribe at any time!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! My husband and I are finishing our big garage organization project this weekend but are hoping to find some time to have a little bit of fun too! My girls want to go see Crazy Rich Asians – if you guys have seen it, what did you think? Worth seeing in the theater? Take care and I’ll see you back here next week when if all goes well I’ll be sharing our garage organization project with you!