10 Storage Solutions for Kitchens With Character
A perfectly designed kitchen cabinet is a wonderful thing, but so are these clever alternative storage ideas
This article is from our Most Popular stories file.
Kitchens are all about storage, but it can become rather predictable: Think rows of built-in cupboards and wall cabinets, with an emphasis on practicality over personality. So how can your cooking space ingeniously accommodate everything you need while also looking original and exciting? These 10 great solutions offer some fresh ideas — not to mention storage eye-candy!
Kitchens are all about storage, but it can become rather predictable: Think rows of built-in cupboards and wall cabinets, with an emphasis on practicality over personality. So how can your cooking space ingeniously accommodate everything you need while also looking original and exciting? These 10 great solutions offer some fresh ideas — not to mention storage eye-candy!
Create an island library. Passionate home chefs accumulate lots of cookbooks over the years, but not always the space to store them. Volumes kept near the stove can become scruffy and grease-spattered and perhaps don’t merit being displayed prominently.
How about this, though: neat shelves on the end of an island? The books are visible — and add color — without being central to the design of the kitchen, and they’re easy to grab when you’re searching for a recipe.
Get More From Your Kitchen Island
How about this, though: neat shelves on the end of an island? The books are visible — and add color — without being central to the design of the kitchen, and they’re easy to grab when you’re searching for a recipe.
Get More From Your Kitchen Island
Scale up. A pantry that’s also a breakfast station is sure to set any storage fanatic’s pulse racing. This is perhaps the ultimate piece of kitchen furniture, one most of us can only dream about.
It combines oodles of storage with a dedicated space where you can prepare your coffee and toast. You can then stand and gaze at your neatly arranged shelves while you eat. Life doesn’t get much better than that, does it?
Find a professional organizer near you
It combines oodles of storage with a dedicated space where you can prepare your coffee and toast. You can then stand and gaze at your neatly arranged shelves while you eat. Life doesn’t get much better than that, does it?
Find a professional organizer near you
Repurpose a hanger. Dish towels go on a cupboard or oven door handle, right? Wrong. You can hang them on a hanger that is hanging on the wall! Original, quirky, inexpensive storage.
Carve out space for the unwieldy. Chopping boards and trays are sizable, often heavy pieces that benefit from a dedicated home like this compartment incorporated into a run of cabinets. It’s such a simple little storage detail, but so invaluable.
Ditch convention. This pale and unpretentious kitchen may not be to a neat freak’s taste, but there’s something to be admired in its anything-goes approach to storage.
Superficially cluttered though it may appear, I suspect its owner knows exactly where everything is and that all the essentials are within a quick grab from the stove.
10 Things Neat Freaks Know to be True
Superficially cluttered though it may appear, I suspect its owner knows exactly where everything is and that all the essentials are within a quick grab from the stove.
10 Things Neat Freaks Know to be True
Hang it high. Making use of vertical space is a smart move in a kitchen, where storage often has to be worked into a small footprint. This space features a metal rack that was probably never intended for a kitchen but works beautifully holding pans and utensils.
It’s attached high on the wall to reduce the risk of banging a head against a frying pan!
It’s attached high on the wall to reduce the risk of banging a head against a frying pan!
Resist the sleek. Kitchen design often tends toward the sleek and efficient, but it can also rock a more edgy, homemade look while still packing in tons of practical storage. So think laterally and use old piping and boards to make some shelving — you’ll get storage and original style at the same time.
Add a twist to the typical. Kitchen storage needs to be well-designed and abundant enough to hold everything from mugs to marmalade. But really great kitchen storage does it while adding a twist of unique style.
These glass-fronted cupboards are fairly basic, but the tiling on the interior adds detail and interest and contributes to the kitchen’s industrial feel.
Tell us: From furniture to simple hooks or shelves, what are your favorite pieces of kitchen storage? Let us know in the Comments.
More
Stash It All: Know the 3 Zones of Kitchen Storage
How to Add Toe Kick Drawers for More Storage
Find kitchen designers in your area
These glass-fronted cupboards are fairly basic, but the tiling on the interior adds detail and interest and contributes to the kitchen’s industrial feel.
Tell us: From furniture to simple hooks or shelves, what are your favorite pieces of kitchen storage? Let us know in the Comments.
More
Stash It All: Know the 3 Zones of Kitchen Storage
How to Add Toe Kick Drawers for More Storage
Find kitchen designers in your area
Typically fitted with drawers, racks, baskets and even lighting — and performing valiantly even when ultra-slender — these modern beauties offer plenty to love.