Your best kitchen organizing tip

[happymom]

Thank you for the organizing junkie link! I'm going to be doing a lot of browsing!

So, how do you use a turntable? I can see the benefit of using it to store oils, etc., but how big is it and where do you keep it?

Personally, I use them for my spices and vinegars. I have a deep and wide corner cabinet over my corner sink- the kind that has a lot of space that is not easily accessible through the cabinet door. Until I got turntables, everything just got lost in there. Now, I have 2 turntables side by side on the bottom 2 shelves- so 4 turntables in total. I keep spices on the bottom 2, and vinegars and oils on the top 2. It works really well!

[goldenpig]

1. I labeled my pantry shelves so that everything has a place: oatmeal, hot drinks, snacks, granola bars, popcorn in one cabinet; baking supplies in another, and the pantry has rice, pasta, couscous/pilafs, nuts, soup, beans, tomatoes, corn, canned fruit, Asian, Tex-Mex, etc. Helps a lot for putting things away and seeing what we have.
2. I have 4 different kinds of cereal on the counter in Oxo Pop containers (I think it's the 2.5 qt rectangular one), which is nice because it has an airtight seal, the cereal stays fresh and we can see when it's time to buy more.
http://www.amazon.com/1071397-Rectan.../dp/B0018O3BEO
3. We have 2 cabinets with turntables for our pots and pans and appliances/serving bowls.
4. I tried to purge a lot of the accumulated plastic clutter (got rid of random plastic cups from restaurants, replaced our Ziploc/Glad plastic containers with Pyrex).
I got these:
http://www.hsn.com/?rdr=1&sourceid=9...ther*958792*NA
I love them because they're dishwasher safe, the lids don't leak (and have a vent for microwave steaming), and you can heat things up in the microwave without worrying about plastic. And they're nice enough to serve in!
5. I got a Kik-Step step stool, which is really handy because now I can reach the top shelves of our cabinets, so now I have a lot more accessible shelf space.
http://www.thenerds.net/CRAMER.Crame...0.html?affid=8

[DebbieJ]

Ooh, yes, I also have a step stool. It's a small folding one that slides into the space between my lower cabinets and my stove.

It's this one, but I picked it up at CVS. They have them at a lot of different stores.

http://www.acehardware.com/product/i...ductId=1378227

[niccig]

Ooh, yes, I also have a step stool. It's a small folding one that slides into the space between my lower cabinets and my stove.

It's this one, but I picked it up at CVS. They have them at a lot of different stores.

http://www.acehardware.com/product/i...ductId=1378227

I have several of these. I'm short and can never reach the top shelves. So I have one of these in the kitchen, one in my closet, one in DS's closet and one in the family room closet. Sometimes I need to go get the 2 step stool, but this is mostly high enough. I hate being so short.