Tips for Organizing Small Kitchen Drawers

While I absolutely love our new home {see my new home tour}, it’s been interesting getting used to my new much-smaller kitchen. One of the trickiest things has been trying to make it work with two small drawers. Yes, two. I went from 6 large drawers to two that are about the size of one of my old drawers combined.

So YES, I’m excited at the prospect of remodeling the kitchen. We are hoping next summer, but we’ve changed our plans to possibly putting an entire new addition on the house, so it may take longer.

In the meantime, I’m determined to make this kitchen work for our family.

The first project I HAD to tackle was my organizing my small kitchen drawers. 

It was driving me nuts. I couldn’t find what I needed because everything was so cluttered. After facing the prospect of not being able to make dinner because I couldn’t find my can opener, I knew I had to organize THAT day.  And yes, I did find my can opener. In the bottom of this drawer, buried under the mound of all that stuff.

Ok so here’s what I’ve learned – in essence, my tips for organizing small kitchen drawers:

These simple ideas have transformed my kitchen drawers (without spending any money!), making it so much quicker and easier to put things away and most importantly to find kitchen utensils/tools when I need them. 

First take everything out of the drawer. Wipe it clean too.

(Bonus for me – I managed to fix the drawer that fell forward each time we opened it. Sweet!)

Tip 1: Declutter

I didn’t have a lot of things to get rid of, since I did a major declutter of my kitchen before we moved this summer, but this is the time to do it. 

Throw away broken stuff. Donate anything you don’t use.  That old butter knife you last used three years ago? Get rid of it. I am not too cool to cut butter with a regular knife. Do you really need 8 serving spoons? Maybe you do, but maybe you don’t. Be merciless. GET RID OF IT!

Tip 2: Don’t cram it. 

Now that your drawer is cleaned and decluttered, put only your essential I-need-to-access-this-often tools away. Do not cram that beautiful drawer full again. 

Speaking of beautiful drawers…

I would love for my drawer to look like this gorgeous kitchen drawer from Curb Alert.  Doesn’t it look fabulous? 

Or how about this DIY Kitchen Utensil Drawer Organizer from Kevin & Amanda? SO-PRETTY!

Sigh. Sweet dreams. Maybe some day. But I am not handy like that. Nor do I have time to learn how.  No…not now. 

Soooo… back to reality. I took the utensil trays I already had and changed around the layout of my two drawers. One side has my kitchen knives, scissors, and can opener. (Yep, it finally has a home!) The other side has serving utensils, tongs, and a serving knife. 

I put the sharp knives in a bin in the front. This does two things – 1) it keeps the main trays from sliding forward and backward and 2) it keeps the sharp knives out of the main silverware drawer where the kids can grab them. 

My main silverware drawer now looks like this. {Joshua was my helper and put them all away for me. Didn’t he do a good job?}

Much better, compared to this before:

I have one more small bin in the back, again to keep the main silverware tray from sliding around and to store two small things. 

I used a longer white bin at first, but the main tray moved too much and that bothered me more. So the smaller wider square bin won out. I am still not thrilled with this part, and may try something different later. But it’s still far better and more user-friendly than before. 

Now doesn’t that look better?

The drawers have been organized. But what to do with the remaining utensils and tools that we didn’t have room for? 
I have a few ideas for that too.

Tip 3: Relocate

You can may find room in your pantry, basement or garage, in a kitchen cabinet upper shelf, a utensil crock on your counter, etc. for storing extra kitchen tools.

Look around your kitchen and see what will work for you.

I came up with three alternative storage areas for my kitchen. Since I don’t have a big pantry, the first area is storage shelves in my basement. The items I use less than once a month went into a bin and down on the shelf. {You can do the same for larger things in your kitchen too – my huge soup pot has to stay in the basement too.)

My second storage area is the upper shelf space in my cabinets. This is often underused space because we don’t necessarily want to put mugs or plates there since it’s higher up. But it’s still available space and a great place to store a couple bins with extra kitchen tools.

I have two storage bins in my upper kitchen cupboard.

I found a nice-looking bin (from Target) that I’ve turned into my baking bin. This holds my measuring cups, tablespoons, cookie scoop, extra beaters for my Kitchen Aid, etc.

I love my white baking bin and plan to pick up another from Target so my second bin will match. In the meantime, this random plastic bin I had in my attic works well for my miscellaneous bin.

It stores stuff like chopsticks, the apple corer/cutter, egg slicer, pastry blender, etc.

Lastly, I pulled out this lovely utensil crock someone gave us for our wedding a long time ago. I’ve only used it sporadically in the past because I prefer not to have extra stuff on my counters. But in this case, it’s perfect.

I keep it next to the stove, so it’s easy to grab a spoon or whatever I need when I’m cooking.

Looking for a utensil crock? Here’s a nice one that will match any kitchen: Utensil Crock {<<affiliate link}

One more quick tip: give your family members a quick run through on your new organized drawers. Because we all know how quickly they can un-organize everything! Especially if you have a husband and/or older child who helps empty the dishwasher. 

I hope these few tips for organizing small kitchen drawers help inspire some organization in your kitchen. It doesn’t have to take long, you don’t have to spend much or any money at all, and you don’t have to be a talented DIYer. (Me=envious<<<). 

So now it’s your turn. Look around and see what works for your kitchen. 

Leave me a comment and share your best tip for organizing small kitchen drawers. I’d love to hear your ideas and I may even add it to this post! 

Need more inspiration for organizing?

Here’s an idea for organizing your kitchen spices:

And more Pin-tastic organizing ideas: