Did you plan storage before or after finalizing the cabinet order?

Definitely before

What sort of criteria did you use for what made the cut to get in the "good" cabinets?

Not sure what you mean by the "good" cabinets. For my new cabinets and drawers, I de-cluttered extensively my old stuff. My criteria was simple - do I use it. Kinda appalled at the multiples of spatulas, whisks, baking dishes, knives, gadgets, and pots and pans that I never use. All went to charity or friends/family. I think I halved my stuff. I do have my "good" china in my glass-front upper cabinets. No mullions for me, they drive me crazy.

What did you do that you are thrilled with?

My knife drawer. Always hated the knife block-y thing on the counter, or worse, a jumble of knives in a drawer. I have this Henckels in-drawer tray, but there are many similar available. I also culled my knives down to the essential 5 or 6 that I use, a honing steel, and a set of steak knives, which all go in that tray.

My vertical storage for trays/baking dishes.

What do you wish you'd thought of earlier that you didn't realize until you'd used the new kitchen for a while?

A spice drawer. Instead of a jumble of spice bottles in an upper cabinet, hard to sort and find, or worse, one of those spice pull-outs next to a range (hated my old spice pull-out, never again), you can have the bottles laid out in a wide shallow drawer using the Rev-A-Shelf Spice Drawer Inserts. Everything visible and reachable. Cat_mom's drawer is my inspiration.

What else do you advise for someone who hasn't done it yet?

De-clutter ruthlessly. And look at other kitchens on this forum and search for threads about storage and organization, there are many. Cheryl Hewitt just posted the most organized kitchen I have ever seen, but she does have a lot of space.

I'm living in a rental now, so I've ruthlessly pruned what is "out". I had pruned quite a bit when my DD moved into her first apartment. I gave her tons of stuff and only replaced a small portion. (Trickle down family economics--the kids get my old stuff and I buy new stuff for me) Knife pruning is hard--I'll start paying attention to what I use. (I'm also learning what I had to go get out of packed up boxes--need to find the electric kettle and my son is visiting and wants loaf pans)

I've built this spice rack for our current kitchen. My plan is to build another one the right width for the back of the pantry door.

I have identified that I need to store "primary measuring cup/spoons" in one place and my 2nd/3rd/4th sets only with the baking supplies, since I only need that many when I'm baking.

I'm looking forward to this process!

echo the spice storage issue. I like the rack and drawer. DO NOT get the pull out cabinet. It is hard to see into.

I wish I'd had a place for trays and cookie sheets.

If at all possible, have a pantry area.

In my case, planning where to put things happened long before the remodel, because I had a small, inefficient kitchen. I knew how NOT to make it work, and I wanted improvement! My kitchen isn't huge, so I needed to plan very carefully.

For example, one of the goals of my kitchen remodel was to vastly reduce clutter on the counters. Knife blocks, toaster, canisters, charging cables left not enough working space. I wanted a real range hood - so I needed a different place for a MW. We would stock up on beer and pop - and the cases would be piled up next to the fridge. I wanted a dedicated space to store those things. My kitchen is U-shaped, so I wanted to make to most efficient use of the corners that I could. We had so few drawers that potholders were stored in a lazy susan next to the stove - not very convenient.

Figuring out the "where" helped me to nail down the "what". Before the remodel, I had one drawer stack, 12" wide! Now I have 3, but that's not a lot, so I put a drawer over the trash/recycle pullout, and I angled a base corner for a full circle super susan, and a drawer above. Small appliances go in the SS (I measured my tallest appliance to make sure the shelf was placed to provide room, not just put at the midpoint).

So one corner was figured out - between the fridge and sink. The corner between sink and range was a lot harder: this is our primary prep space, so there's a lot of action there, and a lot of things I needed in the vicinity: pots and pans, cooking utensils, potholders, spices. Meanwhile, I had only one stack of drawers, on the other side of the range from the sink (the fridge side was taken up with DW, trash, and SS). I looked at every corner solution you can imagine: Hafele Magic Corners, corner drawers, Susans, blind corners. I had room elsewhere, so I didn't need a place for large items I rarely used (those often get relegated to base corners). I needed space for things I used every day: leftover containers, bags and wraps, utensils, dish towels, and canisters of flour, sugar, etc (since I don't have a pantry). I'm a mechanical engineer, so I loved the ingenuity of some of the corner storage solutions I researched.

After many months of trying every combination I could imagine, I ended up closing off the corner, and putting drawers on both sides. Now I had a place of all the things i mentioned above - right where I needed them! After 4 years, I could not be happier with the decision. Buehl (one of my all-time favorite posters here) will disagree with me, but sometimes closing off a corner is the best solution.

Another different thing I love in my kitchen is the storage above the fridge. Many people use that space for vertical storage of pans, trays, and cookie sheets. I used a small (30") sink base, and had 9" next to the sink that I use for cookie sheets and cutting boards. I had my cabinet maker build pull-outs above the fridge, accessed from the side (essentially a sideways drawer). One is used for cold cereal (we had 2 teenagers in the house when we remodeled); the other is stock pots and paper towels.

Oh, and be honest with yourself! Plan for the way you really do live, not the way you think you should live!

I need to do the same thing. We are also in a smaller place while building and I have so much in storage..I've forgotten a lot of what I have. I wish I had purged before putting it in storage.

following your thread.

In my previous kitchen I had two spots for trays/cutting boards.

I had a 9" cabinet next to the sink for the high use items, and then I used the cabinet above the wall oven for the rest of the cooling trays, muffin tins, etc. (And I had a totally difference spot for large baking (12x18, 11x15) baking pans, which didn't fit there). The only thing I like about my current kitchen is the wider low cabinet for trays!

I did pretty much what Freidajune did - severe editing. When my mother died in 1993, we took most of her kitchen thing up to the dorm apt in Maine where my husband was to start teaching. Ten years later when he became ill, we came back full time to our permanent home which we had kept those 10 yrs - lots of going back and forth. Most everything came home with us.

When I started cleaning out cabinets for the kitchen remodel, I was ruthless. Much went into garage cabinets (the original cabinets in this house in 1948) to be saved for grandchildren when they set up house. Lots went to Goodwill. I dues overhead that I glad FOUR springform pans; I now have one.

I was lucky that I already had the Rev-a Shelf spice drawer inset and it went into the new drawer. I added a Rev-a Shelf pull out with 3 stainless canisters to hold all those spoons, whisks, spatula, and a shelf underneath to gold all my oils and vinegars and my dry Vermouth for cooking.

This was a remodel with no walls moved so I knew what I had and where it would fit. I had a couple of surprises with drawers at corners, but I made them work.

Cheryl, you are a kitchen rock star! Thank you so very much for sharing your spreadsheets with us. Who needs Marie Kondo?

Cheryl, that's awesome! What a logical, great way to organize your kitchen. Thanks for sharing.

Ha! I may have gotten a bit obsessive over the kitchen remodel.

I'm not nearly so concerned about organization.........I didn't plan any storage at all before the kitchen or the kitchen cabinetry was planned. The only thing I insisted on was that there be no lower cabinets - I wanted them all to be (pull out) drawers - and other choices I would leave to my KD. She recommended a cabinet manufacturer that she works with a lot, and then I chose the door style and finish that I wanted that was within my price bracket.

After it was finished, I had the choice (and chore) of deciding where to put everything. I changed my mind several times in the first couple of months, and I'm still not sure I'm finished changing my mind. I'm letting my working patterns and instinct decide where to put things so they fit and they're easy for me to get to. More like "organic organization". I had a 5'x7' pantry put in without built-in shelves, so I can adjust them if I need to. I added "Metro" style open shelves in there for supplies and appliances I use less often.

The thing I am most happy with is my pull-out, for trash, recycling, and composting.

What do I wish I'd thought of before? I wish I had built-in vertical storage for trays and cutting boards, rather than the make-do system I'm using now (using pot-lid storage racks). Of course, that would have required me to decide beforehand where I would have wanted to store them ;)

A couple pieces of advice:

1. Plan what's going in each of your drawers, and make sure you have enough drawers of the right height, including enough shallow drawers -- we ended up turning one of the 6"/12"/12" 3-drawer stacks our kitchen designer had originally drawn in main prep space into a 4-drawer 6"/8"/8"/8" stack. Nothing we planned to store in that area needed deep drawers, so we essentially got an extra drawer for free

2. My favorite organizational thing is a homemade spice insert for one of those 8" drawers.

I ordered 60 spice jars from Penzeys printed color coded, alphabetized labels, and made an organizer out of a couple 1/4" sheets of plywood cut to the size of the drawer interior, and some 1x2 boards. I drilled 60 holes in the top piece of plywood so every jar always fits in the right spot.

Toronto Vet, can you convert the spice pullouts to a cutting board and cookie sheet storage? tall and thin - should be just the ticket.

I planned my kitchen in much the same way Cheryl did. It was an enormous help, but I had to redo it many times, as I thought through where I would put things.

i decided that if I could manage it, I would not make any drawer smaller than 18". I was really thankful that I was able to manage this as I think anything much smaller would not be able to store what I really wanted a storage place for (For example, I wanted a drawer for my placemats. I wanted easy access to them so didn't want anything on top of them, but had to break down and store my cork trivets on top...still easy enough to access them.)

Things I almost forgot I wanted a storage place for:

-placemats

-broom and dustpan

-bread (I have a dedicated drawer for this and I LOVE it! No more bread and baked goods on the counter.)

I'm really happy that I used a full length pull out drawer for my garbage under the sink. It is only a 24" cabinet, but I have a relatively large 27 qt garbage can in there, a step stool, dish soap, dishwasher soap, and a few cleaning supplies and everything is very easy to access because it is all in a pull out drawer.

i echo all the other comments about purging ruthlessly...I was amazed at how many odds and ends I had accumulated (things that were broken or missing parts). Those things I just threw out. I got rid of things I hadn't used in years, and if I had duplicates of anything, if I really only needed one of them, I got rid of the extras. I donated the items to our local Salvation Army.

I really like just having only what I need in my drawers. They are largely uncluttered, with what I do have easily accessible.

i do wish I'd realized that I needed some way to hang a drying towel near my sink. My new dishwasher is next to my sink, but when I bought it, I never thought about getting one with a handle so I could hang a towel from it. I don't want to hang a towel from the sink cabinet handle because I don't want to drip water down the wood door front (I have stained wood cabinets). Oh well.

I admit that I planned like Cheryl. I started with a list of categories/ things that I want to store in the kitchen and how .. I.e. Broom, fire extinguisher, spices, etc...

I then listed the details on a spreadsheet. I broke down the measurements of the kitchen to maximize every inch except for one 3" filler.

I assigned items to an area and to each cabinet. From there, I measured the items and designed the cabinet innards to maximize storage. My drawers are all 5-6 drawers cabinets and the height of each drawer was designed to be useful.

The measurement of the first drawer was important to me. I passed on several companies because their first drawer was so useless in measurements. I ended up doing custom heights.

The biggest importance to me were spices, big utensils, oil and broom. I thought careful through these storage.

i do wish I'd realized that I needed some way to hang a drying towel near my sink. My new dishwasher is next to my sink, but when I bought it, I never thought about getting one with a handle so I could hang a towel from it. I don't want to hang a towel from the sink cabinet handle because I don't want to drip water down the wood door front (I have stained wood cabinets). Oh well.

It looks like you need a towel pig!

Did you plan storage before or after finalizing the cabinet order?

Believe it or not, most of my storage plans were made after my cabinet order was finalized. I did plan for the tray storage, extra shelves so I didn't have to stack different items together, spice pullouts flanking the cooktop (long story about that), trash pullout, Pet Center, and pots & pans.

Most other items, fortunately, fit where they were needed/used so I could easily place them. Having almost all drawers helped immensely!

Most of the other planning that you see in the Storage FAQ I did after the cabinet order was placed. My storage plans were incredibly useful when I was planning where to put everything while I was waiting for the cabinets to arrive.

Note that everything didn't go as planned...I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease around that time and ended up having to make space for extra sets of some items like pots & pans, measuring cups/spoons, knives, prep tools, mixing bowl, etc. (Yes, that is necessary for many, if not most of us, with Celiac Disease...so please don't pop in here and say it isn't necessary --- I discovered it really is necessary!)

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What sort of criteria did you use for what made the cut to get in the "good" cabinets?

Primary criterion: How often was an item used. If it was used fairly often, it went in a "good" cabinet (i.e., at point of use and in a useful cabinet).

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What did you do that you are thrilled with?

• Drawers, drawers, drawers!
• Trash pullout - 2 bins. It's so easy now to toss things into the trash and recycle bins b/c they're both right there! No more running out to the garage with recyclables!
  -- The dogs no longer get into the trash (They learned how to open the previous stand-alone trash cans -- including the one that required you to step on a pedal to open!)
  -- Bins are a perfect size -- big enough not to have to take the trash out all the time but small enough that trash doesn't stay inside long enough to start smelling. The bins take 13-gallon "tall kitchen" bags.
  -- No more "basketball throws" when throwing things out (my DH is big into that sort of thing and, of course, passed it on to both kids!)
• Tray storage, including a shelf for long platter storage
• Extra shelves for each upper cabinet
• Knife in-drawer tray (https://www.amazon.com/Wusthof-Drawer-7-Slot-Knife-Storage/dp/B000066SYQ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8) Mine has two rows of slots -- one for short knives and one for long knives. I got rid of all those various knives you get in sets that you never use and now just have the ones I really need and use all the time: 20cm chef's knife, 9cm paring knife, bread knife, & "tomato" knife.
• 3 drawers under the cooktop -- two deep for pots & pans (gluten cooking) and a shallower top drawer for knives, prep & cooking utensils, etc. It's nice having utensils right where I need them.
• Utensil organizers everywhere! Sliverware, prep/cooking utensils, junk drawer, miscellaneous tools, electronics, etc. I think every top drawer in my Kitchen has at least one organizer in it, except the pot holder drawer.
• Pet Center cabinet for dog food, treats, meds, leashes, collars, etc., as well as flashlights & batteries in the top shelf. It's a corner cabinet turned 90-degrees to face outside the Kitchen. It also happens to be very close to where we feed the dogs.
  -- AnnKH...I'm not opposed to voiding a corner, but only if there's plenty of storage elsewhere and you gain overall functionality.

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What do you wish you'd thought of earlier that you didn't realize until you'd used the new kitchen for a while?

Location of my trash pullout. I wish I had put it in the Prep Zone, not in the Cleanup Zone -- this is my biggest regret in my Kitchen.

6" filler pullouts flanking my cooktop. Originally, they were supposed to be 9" cabinets for cutting boards, pizza stones, and other heavy items I did not want to store above the counter. However, with the measurement debacle, I lost about a foot of space on my Prep Zone/Cooking Zone wall. It cost me 6" of aisle width b/w my peninsula seating and DR table and 6" of cabinet space -- 3" of which were taken from each 9" cabinet. My KD wanted to just make them filler, but I resisted (I had also lost space in my Pantry & on my Cleanup Zone wall, lost my Message Center, and had to close up my FR entrance by 2' to fix issues caused by the many, many measuring mistakes by my KD. Oh, and I lost almost 10" b/w the end of my peninsula and refrigerator.)

The 6" filler pullouts were my way of reducing my loss of so much cabinet space. They're OK for the items I put on the top shelves, but I'm not a fan of having to lean down to access the bottom shelves. Also, since the shelves are not adjustable, I was unable to fit oils in them. [BTW...I insisted my KD's company pay for them and pay for the Message Center niche in one of my Pantry walls to make up for all the planned and mutually-approved functionality I lost due to my KD's mistakes.]

Would I do them again? Probably not unless I was going to be stuck with filler.

If I could do it over, I would combine the two 6" filler pullouts, take 6" off my 30"W MW drawer cabinet, and put in an 18" trash pullout next to my prep sink. Oh well -- live and learn!

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What else do you advise for someone who hasn't done it yet?

Everything in the Storage FAQ! :-)

If you're really unsure, order all drawers as it's amazing what you can do with drawers!

Storage FAQ: How do I plan for storage? Types of Storage? What to Store Where?

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Editorial edits...I really miss the "Preview" functionality we had before Houzz took over!

Looking at buehl's link, I remember that I really wish I could have found a good in-drawer knife storage that doesn't store knives on their edges in wood or bamboo. Over time that's dulling, and so I stick to using my knife block on the counter. Maybe I just need a new and better looking block? (oooh, another chance to go shopping!)

I have always had a magnetic knife bar and really like them. The knives are readily available, out of the drawer and off the counter.

Inga

This is an old thread but still so useful! I was so excited to have my kitchen pulls out on this week so I could start putting stuff away and organize-and then I just got overwhelmed. Part decision fatigue from the remodel, I think, part that I want to use the Lee Valley dividers and they are out of stock-so I have all these wide deep drawers with no dividers. This helps motivate me!

I know it’s an old thread but I’m learning so much. A huge thank you to all above :)

The treads even older now, but my kitchen is due to be complete in 3 weeks and this has been helpful! Thank you