Stop Struggling With Kitchen Rags: Use Toilet Paper Tubes To Contain Them

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Hand towels? Neatly folded in your linen closet. Decorative tea towels you pull out for Halloween, holiday dinners, and when your mother-in-law rolls into town? Tidied away in a drawer in your credenza. Kitchen rags? These often-forgotten kitchen essentials are mess. These diminutive rags are key to keeping your kitchen — and, let's face it, the whole house — clean. But no matter what methods you try, they always end up in a disorderly pile under the kitchen sink. All is not lost. You can organize cluttered cleaning towels with this affordable storage hack by YouTuber Upcycle LK AU. The hack makes clever use of something you already have on hand and usually discard: empty toilet paper tubes.

If you want to finally say goodbye to dish towel clutter, this space-saving storage hack will keep them organized. You simply glue a few toilet paper tubes together in a pyramid and attach a loop of ribbon. Hang the organizer somewhere convenient, dry, and easily accessible in your kitchen. Each toilet paper roll becomes a storage compartment for a single clean rag. The best part? You can finish this DIY project in a weekend for less than the cost of a takeout lunch. Get some leftover toilet paper tubes — you know, the ones you've haven't got around to recycling, despite hoarding them for ages. If you don't have any on hand, you can buy a 12-pack of Ruisky Cardboard Tubes for Crafts for about $9. Get some strong adhesive, like Books By Hand pH-Neutral PVA Adhesive, a length of ribbon, and a single-hole punch. You'll also need a Shuttle Art Outdoor Acrylic Paint Set if you don't have paint already.

To make YouTuber Upcycle LK AU's nifty kitchen rag organizer, first paint the inside of six empty toilet paper tubes in whatever color you prefer. Once the paint is dry to the touch, glue three tubes together side-by-side. Glue another two tubes to the first row of three tubes, and top the entire construction with a single, final roll. Punch a hole in one end of the top toilet paper roll. Create a loop from the length of ribbon and knot it at one end, then thread it through the hole. You're done! Hang the organizer from a cabinet pull or hook in your kitchen. Insert a clean, rolled-up kitchen rag into each compartment. Fold rectangular or misshapen rags into a square before rolling them to keep things tidy.

One of the best things about this DIY organizer is that you can easily personalize it. Add more toilet paper tubes to make it larger or take some away to make it smaller. Does the brown paper exterior of the tubes mess with your kitchen decor? Paint the outside of the tubes as well as the inside, or make the most of your leftover peel-and-stick wallpaper and cover each tube with it. If you have a pile of fabric scraps, glue some fabric to each tube. If you have a small kitchen, limited wall space, or simply don't want to hang toilet tubes on your kitchen wall, no matter how pretty they are, modify this DIY project into a drawer organizer. Measure the height of your kitchen drawer and cut the tubes down to fit. Place them into the drawer horizontally and stuff your rags inside.