To effectively organize your kitchen cabinets, apart from knowing and deciding what to put in them, you must also know what not to put in them. It is easier to know what not to store in your kitchen cabinets as opposed to what to store in them as the latter list is endless.
You may have enough space to spare in your kitchen cabinets but that is no excuse to dump everything there. Apart from risking future overcrowding in the cabinets, you are less likely to find anything if you continue like that.
Let’s go through some of the things that should never be stored in your kitchen’s storage units.
1. Appliances You Never Use
If you never use a kitchen appliance, why should it be stored in your kitchen cabinets? Imagine buying a stand mixer at a discounted price 5 years ago and letting it occupy space in its box in your kitchen cabinet. That appliance should not be there.
You can store it in your basement or storeroom. If you have no intentions of using it too, you can give it out to someone who will make use of it.
2. Appliances You Always Use
My coffee maker is one appliance I never store in my kitchen cabinet. The reason is I make a cup of coffee every morning. I think it will be tedious to keep the coffee maker in my kitchen cabinet and have to take it out every morning to make my coffee.
So, I leave it on my kitchen countertop. Thus, if there are any appliances you use in your kitchen every day, they should never be stored in your kitchen cabinet, unless they are sharp objects, for safety reasons.
3. Seasonal Décor Items
After seasonal festivities such as Christmas, none of the decorations belong in your kitchen cabinets. If you decorate your kitchen during any of the seasons, once you decide to put those decorations down, do not store them in your kitchen cabinets.
The same goes for parties and birthday décor. You do not use them frequently so do not allow them to take up space in your cabinets. Storing them in boxes and putting them away in your basement or storeroom is best.
4. Expired Food Products
Seriously, why are you keeping those expired food products in your kitchen cabinets? You cannot and shouldn’t use them so you need to toss them in the bin. Keeping expired food products in your kitchen cabinets only wastes your storage space.
This is why apart from checking the expiration date of food products we buy to make sure we can finish them before them, we also make sure to occasionally check the date of those we already have in our cabinets.
5. Storage Bowls With No Lids
I’m sure most of us are guilty here. We keep storage bowls with missing lids hoping to find those lids. Or, we keep the bowls with the excuse that they could still be helpful. While I am not saying they are entirely useless, keeping storage bowls whose lids you cannot find is a waste of storage space in your kitchen cabinets. If you are not ready to discard them, please store them elsewhere, just not in your kitchen cabinets.
6. Broken Kitchenware
If there are any utensils, bowls, cups, or glassware in your kitchen cabinets that are damaged, chipped, or broken, they need to go. I know that sometimes we all develop attachments to certain things and it is difficult to let go of them. However, these may take up space in your kitchen cabinets because you may not use them anyway.
7. Perishables
This is a no-brainer but worth mentioning. There is no way you should ever store perishable foods like vegetables and herbs in your kitchen cabinet. First of all, the conditions in your kitchen cabinets are not conducive to these perishable foods. They will not last long. Again, these perishable foods are best kept in your refrigerator or freezer.
8. Duplicate Items
If you have two of the same piece of equipment, it is advisable to keep just one of them in your kitchen cabinet. I’ll exclude cutlery because I know most of us keep a number of them in our cabinets when we use just a few every day.
However, if you have, for instance, two blenders, do not keep both in your kitchen cabinets with the excuse of using them simultaneously. Unless of course, you have a blender for making smoothies and another for blending vegetables and ingredients.
9. Some Non-Kitchen Items
There are some non-kitchen items that most likely do not belong in the kitchen cabinets. Non-food-related items like cookbooks, manuals, and screwdrivers, just to mention a few, must never be stored in your kitchen cabinets. These items take up space and are likely to make your kitchen cabinets clumsy.
10. Insect or Bug Killers
I understand the cabinet can look like a place to store everything and anything which includes bug killers. These are definitely not supposed to go into the cabinet because they are harmful and can easily be accessed by kids.
There is also the potential of these chemicals getting in contact with food items which can lead to serious health implications.
Best store it in fewer traffic areas such as the basement, garage, or store room.
11. Serving Trays
It is honestly just awkward storing serving trays in your kitchen cabinets. Imagine having to rummage through a pile of serving trays to pick out the preferred one when you have stacked them in a drawer.
Again, consider how annoying it gets to pack up or pick out a tray from a cabinet and the cabinet divider is in the way. Serving trays can be bulky and difficult to fit into cabinets therefore needs to be stored offsite.
Final Thoughts
Truthfully, you can store whatever you like in your kitchen cabinets. however, for a more enjoyable and functional kitchen space, do not waste your cabinet space on certain foods and items can are best suited to be stored in other places like the pantry, refrigerator, freezer, basement, or attic.
