Organizing Your Existing Kitchen and Pantry.

Good news: The kitchen is the easiest room to organize. Look around, what do you see? Stacks of mail, knickknacks, small appliances, cooking utensils, spices losing their taste. It’s easy to sort out what’s necessary and what’s not. Bad news: Because it is the busiest place in the house, batteries, pets stuff, papers and so on also tend to accumulate in the kitchen.

CLEAN SWEEP

Food prep is the focus of the kitchen, so your goal is to clear out everything that is not essential to cooking or eating. Start by clearing enough space to make cleaning your food-prep surfaces easy. You don’t have to tackle it all at once, in fact, it’s best to go slowly and methodically, so you get it right the first time. Think carefully about what you truly need in the kitchen and what can go elsewhere. 
Next, free up a small space on the countertop or the breakfast table, open the pantry and empty it entirely. This step is easy and fun once you get started!

Throw out or recycle:
• expired food items
• spices that have lost their zest
• anything that you can't remember when you used it last • containers without lids
• that heap of plastic bags (they won't be collector’s items)
Weed out the cleaning products area by disposing of toxic products that are old or just too toxic. Consider the variety of more natural cleaners currently available. To make room in your cabinets, get rid of any cracked or broken china that you wouldn't dare to use with guests; same goes for damaged silverware. Pull out odd the wedding gifts, those fast food toys (they may have been loved once but, you don't have to live with them forever). Do you have a second tea set, fondue pot or food processor? Put those in a box marked "duplicates” to be given away later on. Keep only what you truly like and use.

Next step is to clean cabinets inside and out, then store the kept items by function and shape. The placement of items has to make sense to you: for some of us, the mugs go with the glasses, for others, the mugs go with breakfast items. Invite a friend over and play your favorite tune, it will go faster!    

LOOK & FUNCTION
Now, you can think about the interior design of your countertops, pantry, cabinets and drawers. Remember that a sparse countertop is the easiest to clean, so leave out only the items you use daily and are dear to you (and not your mother or best friend). If the water kettle, coffee machine and toaster are your most- utilized items, keep those on the counter and relocate other items.

Store all objects close to their related function—the less you use them, the farther away they can be placed. For example, store spices and condiments in drawers next to the cooktop, but Thanksgiving serving platters or the fondue set can be stored in the highest cabinet or the highest shelf.

What you use on a daily basis should be stored in a place lower than the height of your shoulders. Heavy items, such as Dutch ovens, large pots and mixers, should be stored in a fully extendable drawer. Don't pile plates and bowls too high, instead, add an intermediate shelf to improve function. Inside cabinets, use interior pull-out drawers or baskets attached on simple tracks under the shelves. 

To organize the contents of your drawers and baskets, sort by use. For example, openers for cans, bottles, and nuts go in one compartment. Next, assemble the utensils by type, then by size. You may need to buy some fittings for your drawers. Plastic or wood containers are available not only at kitchen stores, but also at office supply stores or bath stores or the local retail outlets for familiar catalogs. Be sure to have the interior drawer dimensions handy (including the height) to find the best-fitting options. 

Lastly, it helps greatly to store small appliances that don't need to be kept out on the countertop. Leave them in a cabinet close enough to an electrical outlet. Try to group all their accessories together in a single, topless, box. 

CONQUERING CABINET CHAOS
A shelf system can make it easier to make the most of the space you already have. Strategic placement of special drawers allows for effortless access to kitchen essentials. Grouping pots and pans on two designated pull-out drawers can reduce the fatigue of cooking. Locating canned goods and dry ingredients in the pantry on several pull-out shelves can simplify searches and improve storage capacity.
“When someone invites us into their home, they may have a big, fabulous kitchen, but all that space is just not working for them,” says Ric Trahan, of Shelf Genie. “We don’t go in with a standard formula. We solve the headaches. Our design experts understand how to maximize the work triangle with efficient space utilization.”
A shelf system provides a huge improvement without a major remodeling job. Trahan says a typical Shelf Genie kitchen project ranges between $2,000 and $3,000, while a pantry alone averages around $1,000.
“I’m not a naturally organized person, but with a well-designed shelf system there is a space for everything,” says Trahan. “My wife and I cook a lot. When you have two or more people working in the kitchen, the placement of items can get confused. Now I don’t get in trouble after I unload the dishwasher, because everything has a specific place.”