How to Organize Kitchen Drawers: Simple Steps That Actually Work

If you’re like me, your kitchen drawers start out organized but somehow become a jumbled mess of utensils, gadgets, and mystery items within weeks. The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to tackle this frustrating problem. In this post, I’ll walk you through the exact process I used to organize my kitchen drawers – from emptying everything out to creating a system that actually stays neat. These simple steps will help you declutter your drawers and keep them organized for good.

No area of your home needs to stay as organized as the kitchen. Like any storage area, drawers can become messy and disorganized. Occasionally, it is necessary to do a major overhaul of our kitchen drawers.

That time comes about twice a year, in January and in the summer. That’s when I finally faced my messy drawers. I became an organizing ninja, a whirling dervish, an organizing superwoman to the rescue.

Along the way, I discovered some game-changing tips that made the process easier and helped my drawers stay organized longer.

Here’s my step-by-step system for transforming cluttered kitchen drawers into functional, organized spaces.

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Our Kitchen Drawers

Our kitchen drawers are places that we open every day – maybe, multiple times a day. They are like good friends, except when they start overflowing and we can’t find the things we need in them. Then, they are no longer our friends.

I love kitchen drawers. They are so much easier to use than cabinets. When we remodeled our kitchen almost 13 years ago, I specified that I wanted all drawers on the lower level.

I counted and we have 19 drawers. Six of the drawers are shallow and thirteen are deep drawers.

Six of the drawers were fairly organized. That means 13 drawers needed an immediate overhaul. Five of those drawers are shallow and eight are deep.

We have only one “cabinet” beneath the kitchen counter. The right side is for the trash can with space for recycling newspapers. The left side is for colanders and my salad spinner.

What Were My Organizing Goals?

• declutter and clean the drawers
• add new shelf liners
• throw out unneeded or duplicate items
• gather similar items in drawers
• make it easier to see and access items in a drawer

What You Need to Organize Your Kitchen Drawers

The first thing I did was order a set of clear plastic storage containers. This set contained 25 containers of different sizes – all perfect for drawer organization.

TIP: Have plastic organizers on hand when you start your organizing. Wait until you are sure that you are going to use them before removing the stickers.

I also bought several plastic containers of different sizes:

• 9″W X 10.5″D X 4″H plastic kitchen organizer
• 5.5″W X 14.5″D X 4″H plastic kitchen organizer
• 7″W X 10.5″D X 4″H plastic kitchen organizer
• pot lid organizer

The Kitchen Drawers – Before

Let’s start with the drawers immediately when you come into our kitchen from the butler’s pantry.

NOTE: You can see the hook where I keep my purse out of sight, but easily accessible. I love hooks. (Get my 7 Easy Inexpensive Ways to Use Hooks.)

The first drawer on the left holds small baking tools.

The next drawer – the one that started this kitchen drawer organization project – is what we affectionately call “the junk drawer”. It’s meant to hold “office” type supplies.

It’s not a pretty sight.

Below this drawer is one that holds larger baking tools. It’s hard to see what’s in there, and to reach some pans and tools.

Let’s begin the kitchen drawer-organizing project here.

TIP: Do you have utensils, dishes, or storage containers you don’t use daily or weekly? Move them to a bin that you can store in another out-of-the-way place.

TIP: If you have items you rarely or never use, this is the time to box them up. Ask a neighbor if they want them or give them away to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. If they are in bad shape, throw them away.

The Process for Organizing Your Kitchen Drawers

The steps I took for all the kitchen drawers were the same. Once I decluttered, cleaned, and organized a couple of drawers, I had the best method.

I currently use the waffle-type rubber shelf liners. As I began reorganizing my drawers, I realized they weren’t the best option.

• Crumbs and any spills in the drawer went straight through to the drawer, which made a mess.
• The rubber shelf liners would occasionally bunch up, adding to the drawer’s unorganized feel. You’ll see what I mean in some pictures below.

I hate the adhesive shelf liners. You can’t take them out of the drawer to clean them, and it ruins your drawers.

TIP: Your first step is to completely empty the drawers.

I’ll use our junk drawer as an example.

You can see how the rubber liners bunch up and how dirty it was.

That’s sand in the back corner that spilled out of an old tape dispenser.

I bought several rolls of shelf liners. The Con–Tact Grip Prints are great because they stay firm in the drawer and don’t move around.

I found a pattern I liked and bought 2 rolls. I quickly realized that would not be enough so I bought 4 more rolls. (I ended up using 5 rolls.)

STEP 1 – Remove EVERYTHING from the drawer, including the contents and old liner. Put the stuff on your kitchen counter.

STEP 2 – Organize the items:

• What needs to stay – the things you use
• What are duplicates or you don’t use: I had a dozen packets of plant food, dozens of twist ties, old business cards, some screws, old sunglasses, a couple of battery-operated cell phone chargers that never worked.

Have a trash bag handy and put everything you don’t need (see above) in the trash.

STEP 3 – Use a dust buster to remove any debris, crumbs, and dust from the drawer. It’s the easiest way I’ve found to get in the corners and suck up any dust and debris.

I love our Black & Decker Dust Buster.

STEP 4 – Use a Magic Eraser to wipe down the inside of the drawer. I like it better than a damp paper towel or sponge.

TIP: This is also a great opportunity to use the Magic Eraser to clean the fronts of the kitchen drawers.

STEP 4 – Measure the width of your drawers and cut your drawer liners to fit. I just used a 2-foot plastic ruler, a pencil, and scissors.

STEP 5 – Gather similar items to return to your drawer. Put them in the best-sized container. You will adjust the container’s size as you go (trust me on this).

STEP 6 – Rearrange your containers as needed.

NOTE: The “fuller” and “tighter” your containers and other essential items are, the neater your drawers will stay.

I used 10 containers of two sizes in this drawer.

I moved a few items to this drawer from other drawers: envelopes, my box of plastic food gloves, packing tape, and our address stamp. These are items we use all the time.

These items are now more easily accessible.

TIP: I threw away all the sunglasses and used the tiebags to hold charger cords and earbuds.

For the envelope box, I removed the cover and cut out a piece so that I could easily pull out an envelope. I kept three plant food packets.

The drawer containers look tight, but they will stay in place better that way.

Organizing the Baking Drawers

One shallow drawer has small baking tools. The cupcake pan took up too much space. I moved it to the metro shelves in the laundry room with other cupcake and cake pans. The food gloves were moved to the junk office-organized drawer.

Following the steps I explained above, the drawer is now neat and organized.

I was able to move several items from other drawers to this one, which makes more sense.

More items are in the drawer than before, but better organized.

I used four new plastic containers and two old ones.

Now all my small baking utensils are in one place.

TIPS: If reusing existing storage bins, be sure to give them a good wash, either by hand or in the dishwasher.

The large baking drawer at the bottom was a mess. I hardly knew what was in there.

First, I emptied a plastic shoe box. Next, I rearranged pastry tips and bags, baking pans, tart molds, funnels, my flour sifter, and deli cups.

Round baking pans are not the easiest things to store. You can’t help but have awkward spaces. Fortunately, this kitchen drawer is still so much better organized than before.

At least now I can see everything, and it’s easy to access.

Organizing Towels, Utensils, and Storage Containers

Here is the bank of drawers next to our sink. I just needed to organize the top three drawers.

The top drawer holds kitchen tools and my stack of parchment paper. The bottom drawer holds Corning Ware and Pyrex dishes, which, thank goodness, didn’t need organizing.

In the top drawer, I first cleaned it out. Then I added the drawer liner and did just a little bit of rearranging. The vegetable peelers were in another drawer, but will work better here.

I use parchment paper almost exclusively for meal preparation and buy it in bulk (3500 sheets) at my local restaurant supply store. Here is a bulk package of parchment paper for a good price.

In the next drawer, I used a combination of a plastic divider I already had with the new clear plastic containers.

TIP: Rolling up dish towels frees up space.

I was able to eliminate one plastic separator. The extra space allowed me to roll up a piece of the rubber waffle liner I use under cutting boards.

The ice cream/cookie scoops were in another drawer but made more sense here.

We use very few canned goods, so I don’t use a can opener very often. I did put it in the extra space.

The next drawer holds various plastic storage containers and serving dishes – ramekins, small Pyrex dishes, soufflé dishes, and ceramic tart/creme brule dishes.

It was not living up to its potential.

I had way too many ramekins. Since I use only a few each day, I moved a dozen into a container.

I used a plastic bin to collect extra ramekins, bowls, and soufflé dishes. I moved them to the metro shelf in the laundry room. The covered shoe box will be reused in my closet – for shoes!

The extra plastic separator ended up in the trash.

Using several of my new clear plastic bins, I completely reorganized the space.

So much better, don’t you think?

These are items we use almost daily, so now they are easily seen and accessible.

Organizing on the Stove Side of the Kitchen

The wall with the stovetop and ovens has the most drawers, from cooking utensils to pots and pans and skillets.

In the drawer to the left of the stove top is where I keep extra spoons, knives, ice cream and cookie. scoops, and vegetable peelers. Our forks, teaspoons, and soup spoons are in a wire container on the counter as easy daily access.

Back to Step 1 – empty the drawer. I know it’s yucky. Number 1 reason to clean drawers occasionally. I threw away the rubber liners.

After emptying the drawer and cleaning it, I moved several tools (the scoops, vegetable peelers, and the can opener to other drawers.

I reused the dividers I already had.

I placed another set of knives and forks where they can be seen and used. The same goes for corn skewers, toothpicks, and matches.

The chopsticks, wooden skewers, jar opener, and spatula came from another drawer beside the double ovens you’ll see in a moment.

TIP: Keep drawers with similar items open so you can spot opportunities to reorganize them together.

Next to our stove is another drawer holding kitchen tools we don’t use every day. I forgot to take a picture of it but trust me it was overflowing.

I moved about half of the items to other drawers or threw them out – things I never use. This was all that was left.

Now the electric knife and my mandoline are easy to see and use. Chip clips and my oven thermometer take up the rest of the space.

The drawer where we keep bags of chips, nuts, and cereal was a mishmash of mismatched containers. I found these tall plastic containers that were perfect for this task.

Drawer Below the Ovens

The drawer beneath the ovens held pot lids, but not very neatly.

I’ve been using a roasting-pan rack as a lid divider, but it hasn’t worked very well. The rubber liner also was a bunched-up mess.

We rarely use lids with skillets in cooking, but I wouldn’t get rid of them.

I purchased a couple of designated lid holders from the Target Brightroom line. I tried them out first.

I followed the same procedure I used on the other drawers: the “remove-vacuumn-clean-new-liner” process. The pot lid drawers look and function so much better.

I gained space: I added one of our pasta pots and a few saucepans. There was even room for a stainless container and our knife sharpener.

This entire organization of kitchen drawers took place over three days. It was so worth the time.

Do you need a few supplies to help you organize your kitchen drawers? Check out these supplies.

I love looking at our pretty, newly organized kitchen drawers.

• The drawers are clean of crumbs and sticky residue.
• Pretty new liners that stay put but can be easily removed for cleaning if needed.
• By removing unused items, I gained space to rearrange the needed ones.
• I now have a more efficient arrangement.
• Items are easily found and accessed.

Did I organize every drawer? No, a few didn’t need it. I do plan to clean the remaining drawers, remove the existing liners and replace them with the new Grip Liners – they are prettier and work so much better.

I hope you found some helpful tips and steps for organizing your kitchen drawers. I can tell you that it was worth every second and every cent to get this organizing project done. Check out my Organization Board on Pinterest.

Don’t forget to PIN IT to your Kitchen or Organizing Boards.