Welcome to Day 6 of my month long series “How to Organize Your Kitchen Frugally in 31 Days”. Every day during the month of October I will be sharing an organized space in my kitchen with you. My goal is to inspire you and give you ideas on how you can organize your kitchen.
If you missed it, you may want to read why I’m embracing my outdated kitchen. It might give you a little perspective on why the pictures of my kitchen organization won’t be “magazine worthy”, but helpful for real life organization.
Today we’re looking at the glasses and dishes cupboard.
This is a simple and easy cupboard to organize. These dish organizing racks are available at almost any store that carries kitchen supplies. They are cheap and super functional. I keep the kids’ divided plates and our dinner, dessert, lunch, and deep dish plates here. Bowls are stored in my breakfast cupboard.
I also keep a few large stackable bowls on the top shelf that I use when preparing meals. Check out the pictures of the overall layout of my kitchen here.
Since our kids are still young, we most commonly use Corelle. They don’t break easily (although when they do – look out!), and I like that they are lightweight and stack nicely.
Years ago, my mother-in-law shared a great tip with me: buy extra dinner plates whenever you buy a set of dishes (if possible). They don’t really take up that much extra space in your cupboard and come in handy for entertaining or if one gets broken. I have about 16 dinner plates in my set. I don’t need all the extra pieces (mugs, dessert plates, salad plates, etc.) so I just bought extra of what I needed. It’s so much cheaper than buying a whole extra set and it doesn’t clog up your cupboards with too many dishes.
***Note: This is a great tip to share with brides-to-be when they are registering for dishes or china! Replacement dishes cost an arm and a leg, and it doesn’t take up much space to stack a few extra plates with your set.
I have other plates that I use for company and special occasions (just the plates! 🙂 ), but I don’t keep them in my everyday dishes cupboard. You’ll see where I keep those in a few days. Since these are the dishes we most commonly use, they are kept just to the right of the dishwasher so it is easy to put them away.
That’s it for today! If you are following me through the 31 Days, feel free to take before and after pictures of your spaces and send me a few. I may feature a few of my favorites.
Tomorrow I’m going to show you the EASIEST way to store leftover containers – for FREE.
Another awesome tip. I must find some of those dish organizers. Thanks again for sharing this series. It is most helpful. 🙂
-Tracy
Okay, I’m starting to feel pretty good about how our kitchen is set up. Oh, I have work to do, but at least I have a good foundation. Our plates, bowls, and cups in a cabinet near the dishwasher. Our bowls are mostly used for soups, instead of breakfast. Our glasses are in another cabinet for easy access to the fridge. I will look at this more closely, but it has seemed to work all of these years. Perfect timing with this series because I’m in an organizational mode right now…lol!
Ha! I love my Corelle, too. I have a few small sets of fancier dishes, but those are mostly stored in another area and I actually use the Corelle – and I’m not lucky enough to have kids – I just like how lightweight, yet durable, and easy to clean they are. I bought all white pasta and soup bowls, but my actual plates came in a set I “won” at a Christmas party. I don’t like the pattern and am thinking of getting rid of them and just getting some plain white dishes to match the bowls. But, I’m trying to save money and it seems replacing them just because I don’t like the looks can wait 6 months or so. 😀