Reuse An Old Shoebox For DIY Kitchen Storage

The kitchen, with its assortment of cookware, food, utensils, and odds and ends, might be the most difficult room in the house to keep organized. This is especially true in small kitchens, where one out-of-place item can interrupt the whole flow. Organizers come in shapes, sizes, and colors suitable for anything you need to keep in order, but if you don't want to spend a penny more than you need for sensible storage, used shoeboxes might be the most budget-friendly kitchen organization tool you can find. A shoebox won't hold your entire collection of kitchen towels, but this DIY solution will keep your sponges and dish rags sorted, and it might be just what you need for storing those container lids you can never keep track of.

One of the benefits of shoeboxes is that they're generally uniform in size, so they stack neatly on shelves. If you're fortunate enough to have a dedicated pantry, reused shoeboxes can organize your items to instantly declutter it, reducing the chances that things get lost in the back and sparing you time trying to figure out where you put that jar of cardamom you need for your famous cookie recipe. If you don't have a pantry, stack the shoeboxes on shelves or in a kitchen cabinet. You could even take your storage to the next level by creating a chic shoebox kitchen organizer covered with decorative contact paper. To give yourself more of a project, consider using different colored papers to designate the contents. For instance, less-used cooking utensils may go in red boxes, while your collection of cake-decorating tools, birthday candles, and sprinkles are in blue boxes.

The kitchen is the perfect place to make use of empty shoeboxes for clever organization because of all the little items that so easily clutter the space. If you don't have tons of wall space for spice shelves or one of those handy pull-out spice racks, use shoeboxes to sort and store the jars you don't use every day and the empty ones you plan to repurpose. Tins and jars fit nicely in a shoebox, and labeling the tops makes it easier to find the one you need without having to pick through all of them. Households that pack lunch daily frequently have small chip bags, packaged fruit, or power bars on hand. Remove the lids from some shoeboxes, and organize your foods by type or the preferences of the members of the household to cut down on fishing around looking for a particular flavor. Having everything visible, organized, and easy to access is also helpful when it's snack time. To make everything even easier to find, label or color-code the shoeboxes.

If you order carryout or delivery regularly, you may wind up with a collection of sauce packets, salt and pepper packs, and plastic eating utensils bundles. Throwing them away is wasteful, but if you keep them in a shoebox dedicated to reusing them, they'll be handy for lunches, camping trips, or nights when you'd rather not have dishes to wash. The same goes for coffee and tea supplies that you can neatly store in a cabinet until you're ready for them the next morning. Create some dividers using cardboard pieces cut from another box, and glue them into the shoebox to make compartments that will organize small items like these for a tidier and more functional kitchen.