Kitchen Organization: Utensils and Kitchen Linens

Happy Monday friends! We are continuing on in our kitchen organization series. Today, I’m going to give you a peak inside all of my kitchen drawers…all 4 of them! Yes, I have a decent sized kitchen, but whoever designed it really skimped on the drawers. But I’ve got a few organizing tricks up my sleeve for all of you who are in the same boat I’m in. So let’s jump into my organized kitchen utensils and linens!

Organized Kitchen Utensils and Linens

Similarly to my past kitchen organizing posts, I’m going to walk you through my organizational systems for my kitchen utensils and linens as well as share some of my best tips for organizing in these spaces.

Below you can see the four drawers we have in our kitchen. Two of these drawers are quite tiny so we’ve really had to get creative with our storage.

Kitchen Linens

Let’s get started with the kitchen linens!

My best tips for keeping kitchen linens organized:

• Keep things minimal. Only keep things you use on a regular basis. Don’t store excess!
• Think outside the box when it comes to storage. You don’t have to store your kitchen linens in a drawer. There are so many other options if you are limited on drawer space like I am.
• Store items where you use them most.

Like I mentioned above, I have very few drawers and I don’t have any drawers near my kitchen sink. When we moved into this house, it was a struggle for us to figure out where to store our towels.

But I found a cute lined basket and stuck it beside my kitchen sink. No, I’m not fond of having a lot of clutter on my countertop, but using a cute basket helps to make it both pretty and functional.

I’ve used a similar system for my cloth napkins. I don’t have enough drawers to store them, plus I wanted to keep them near where we use them most…the kitchen table. We have a small cabinet sitting next to our kitchen table and on top I placed an old family crock. This is where I store our cloth napkins. Again, both decorative and functional at the same time!

I keep my hot pads and oven mitts minimal. I only have one set of oven mitts. I try to wash them every few weeks. But when they get beyond repair, I toss them and just purchase a new set. I have about 10 hot pads. This is mainly due to the fact that I bake a lot and I actually need this many for large baking days.

This is a very small drawer so I’m really forced to keep things simple.

I keep a basket in the top of my pantry where I store the rest of my kitchen linens. I really don’t have an excessive amount. I have one nice table cloth (left) that I use occasionally. I also store my seasonal aprons in this basket. The one I’m currently using hangs on a hook in my pantry. I just rotate through these throughout the year.

I really do love aprons, but I’ve chosen to limit myself to a small storage space because I know if I didn’t it could get way out of hand! I have 7 aprons that I rotate through and I think that’s probably my maximum.

Cleaning rags and dish cloths are stored under my kitchen sink. I will be showing how I store and organize those in the next few weeks.

Utensils

Now let’s take a look at how I store my kitchen utensils.

My best tips for keeping utensils organized:

• Only keep what you use regularly. It will be much easier to keep things organized if you don’t have stuff that you don’t use getting in your way.
• Don’t over fill your drawers. This just causes frustration when you go to find and use what you need. Either separate out your utensils into multiple drawers or use other storage solutions.
• Keep things simple. You don’t need super fancy organizers. The less you have, the less you have to keep organized.
• Unless you use it often, don’t keep speciality utensils. Most of the time, you can easily use a more basic tool to serve the same purpose.

I have a very small drawer (above) next to my stove. It’s the only drawer near the stove, so it’s where I try to store my most used utensils when I’m cooking. I’ve attempted to use drawer dividers in this space, but since the drawer is already so tiny it doesn’t ever seem to work out well. The drawer dividers end up taking up a good amount of space leaving me with very limited space to work with.

So I’ve chosen to keep just the utensils I use. I put my wooden spoons on the left, my spatulas and mix and chop facing forward, and spoons facing backwards.

I used drawer dividers in my main utensil drawer. This is where I store the bulk of my utensils. I’ve tried to store minimal items in each container. While it would be best if I could have a divided space for each individual utensil, that’s just not realistic in this kitchen. I’ve really purged my utensils down. I’ve only kept what I use on a very regular basis.

The drawer the right of our utensil drawer is our silverware drawer. This is the drawer closest to our kitchen table. I always suggest putting your silverware closest to your dishwasher so it’s easy to put away. However, if you are like me you might not have a drawer anywhere near your dishwasher. In that case, I suggest storing it as close to your eating space as possible.

I’m using a wooden silverware divider for our main silverware storage. I use a small container to store the baby/toddler silverware right next to it. This is another space that can easily get out of hand. I have to constantly purge this container because it seems like it multiplies!

We store our pizza cutter behind the kids silverware. This is mainly for safety purposes. I needed this to be towards the back of a drawer so my toddler couldn’t reach it if he happened to get inside a drawer. (As you can see we have drawer locks.) #toddlertornadoliveshere

In the very back I have my large, wooden rolling pin.

Because I love to bake, but have limited drawer space, I’ve chosen to use a basket to store some of my baking utensils in my baking cabinet. This is located in the top of my baking cabinet and is super easy to get to. You can see how I organize my baking cabinet here.

While none of my systems are mind-blowing, I think that’s honestly why they function so well. I’ve kept things simple and I don’t keep things that I don’t use. If I notice a space getting a little overly cluttered, I just do a quick scan and pull out anything I don’t use anymore. This usually takes me 15-30 seconds. I keep a donation box in my home so I just place the unwanted items in that bin. When it’s full, it leaves my house immediately.

The kitchen is my space. It’s my happy place so I really love having what I need as well as a few things I enjoy in this space. However, I’ve really tried to limit what I keep to only the space I have. If a space begins to become overly full, then I know it’s time to purge a few things.

So that’s it! Next up will be pots, pans, and small appliances. I hope you are starting to feel more at peace in your kitchen as your declutter and organize your space.

Looking for more kitchen organization inspiration? Check out these posts:

• Dishes, Glasses, & Mugs
• Tupperware
• An Organized Baking Station

What’s your best tip for keeping organized kitchen utensils and linens?