Connect

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Red Shutter Cottage

Beauty. Order. Contentment.

  • Home
    • About Me
  • Decorating
    • Fall Harvest
    • Christmas
    • Early Winter
    • Spring/Summer
    • Vignettes
  • Projects
    • Furniture
    • Painting
  • Organizing
    • Fall
    • Christmas
    • Kitchen
  • Kitchen
    • Menus
    • Recipes
    • Shopping
    • Food Prep
  • Gallery
  • Contact Us
You are here: Home / Organize Kitchen / How to Organize and Store Containers

How to Organize and Store Containers

February 3, 2018 by Kristine 4 Comments

Here are some ideas to help with organizing and storing containers. www.redshuttercottage.com

It started out innocently enough.  At 6:00 am on a Sunday morning, Sailor and I were sitting at our kitchen table, drinking coffee.  Our son was on his way over with his friend to pick up their boat. They will often park their boat at our house the night before they are going fishing since we live close to the various boat ramps in our area. We like to be up when they arrive, in case they need help, or just to say “Happy Fishing”!

I had spent the day before, and the weekend before that, on a very focused drive of editing, de-cluttering, and purging.  I already had one large box and two small boxes filled and ready to donate.  Sitting in the kitchen, I realized one of the areas I still wanted to edit was my plastic container collection.  I pulled up a photo of a very organized container drawer I had on my Pinterest “Organizing” board, and I was ready to launch!

I have 3 areas where I keep plastic containers, which is probably the first clue that I have too many containers.  The first area is a wide shelf, the 2nd area is narrow, pull out drawer, and the 3rd area is a pot drawer next to my stove.  The first two areas were simply too crowded, but the containers and lids were still pretty organized.  The pot drawer, however, was a disaster.

How to organize and store containers when a drawer gets this messy. www.redshuttercottage.com

How to organize and store containers in a pot drawer. www.redshuttercottage.com

 

For some reason, I couldn’t approach this in stages, working one area at a time. No, I had to jump in and pull every single container out.  In a remarkably short amount of time, my kitchen looked like this.

A messy kitchen during the process of how to store and organize containers. www.redshuttercottage.com

 

(At this point, Sailor took one look at the chaos I was creating, and scurried out to the garage to drink his coffee in peace!)

All of a sudden, all those empty areas made me I realize I needed to vacuum and wipe down the drawers and shelves, which very nearly veered off into vacuuming and cleaning ALL my kitchen drawers and shelves. I somehow managed to avoid that rabbit hole!

A countertop in the process of how to organize and store containers. www.redshuttercottage.com

 

When the container drawers and shelves were sparkling and clean, I started pairing containers with lids.  Slowly but surely, the lid-less containers or container-less lids started the donation pile.  Then I focused on categorizing the various containers by size. I have a few of those multi-sized collections of containers (available everywhere!) so I grouped containers into their ‘families’.  This opened my eyes to the fact that I do not use, and do not need, 4  or 6 sets of 3-ounce or 8-ounce or whatever-ounce sized containers.  2 or 3 sets will do nicely, thank you.  Again, the donation pile grew a little bit more.  I spent the next hour editing, reviewing, deciding, organizing and re-organizing, until I felt like I had a sufficient inventory of containers that would serve as needed.

A countertop showing too many of the same items in how to organize and store containers. www.redshuttercottage.com

 

Then panic struck.  Did I have enough plastic holders and boxes to store everything?  Keep in mind, it was 8:00 am on a Sunday morning; The Container Store wasn’t exactly an option.  So I gathered up the storage holders I had been using and commandeered a cardboard box that had contained a Christmas gift of slippers for Sailor. (I took this picture on my dining room table. Click here to read about my Winter Dining Table vignette.)

Boxes and holders for how to organize and store containers. www.redshuttercottage.com

 

I added the donation containers to the existing haul designated for the thrift store, and threw away quite a few that were stained, lid-less, or quite simply just too old.

When I finished, there was such a sense of accomplishment, and it wasn’t even 9:00 am yet.  I had containers that I knew I would need and use, and I had a donation stack of nice, still usable containers that would find a new home.  I even had a drawer that bore a faint resemblance to the photograph that had inspired this whole event.  The pot drawer now had personality and class.

A pot drawer looking more orderly. How to organize and store containers. www.redshuttercottage.com

The pull-out drawer and the shelf just looked a little bit neater and more organized.

A final shelf view showing how to organize and store containers. www.redshuttercottage.com

How to organize and store containers that are large in a pull-out drawer. www.redshuttercottage.com

 

Large containers sitting in a pull-out drawer showing how to organize and store containers. www.redshuttercottage.com

 

Here is the link to the Better Homes & Gardens photo that was my inspiration.  If you’re looking for ideas, examples, or just a little nudge to ‘contain the containers’, I hope it helps!

From our house to yours~

Kristine

I am sharing at these link parties:

Finding Silver Pennies

My Soulful Home

21 Rosemary Lane

A Stroll Thru Life

Hearth and Soul

Marilyn’s Treats

Wonderful Wednesdays

 

Filed Under: Food Prep, Kitchen, Organize Kitchen, Organizing, Projects

Previous Post: « How to always have cooked and shredded chicken!
Next Post: 2018 Winter Living Room »

Reader Interactions

Newsletter

Please sign-up to receive updates of new blog posts!

Comments

  1. Leanna says

    February 16, 2018 at 10:16 pm

    Plastic containers are so handy to own, but you really do need a system for corralling them especially those lids. Great examples here Kristine and well worth the time it took to clean it all up.

    Reply
    • Kristine says

      February 20, 2018 at 1:13 pm

      Thank you Leanna! It was a great way to start a Sunday! My accomplishment meter was way up!! Surprisingly, I have been able to keep the organization in place. I think letting go of the containers I didn’t need (or weren’t worth keeping) really helps with that!

      Reply
  2. Choice Furniture Superstore says

    April 18, 2018 at 12:22 am

    Organizing containers is really a tough task. Thanks for sharing this amazing post for organizing and storing containers.

    Reply
    • Kristine says

      April 18, 2018 at 9:21 pm

      It’s amazing how much easier storing and organizing is when you weed out all the useless and old items. It’s actually been pretty easy to keep it up. Thank you so much for stopping by.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Thank you for visiting my site! Red Shutter Cottage is a labor of love born out of my desire to organize, style and simply create and craft my environment. You'll see lots of great tips, ideas and hopefully inspiration to enhance your life and living space.

Please feel free to make comments and suggestions. I'm always open to new ideas! Read More…

Newsletter

Please sign-up to receive updates of new blog posts!

Featured Posts

Basket filled with pears from www.redshuttercottage.com

Taking a break…

Hello, and thank you for stopping by. Red Shutter Cottage is taking a little break.  I am writing this in October 2020 and hope to be back in 2021 with new posts about cottage style, why I love thrift shopping, and my (very tiny) obsession with roosters! Together, Sailor and I are facing some big…

Read More »

Archives

  • October 2020 (1)
  • May 2020 (1)
  • April 2020 (2)
  • February 2020 (1)
  • September 2019 (1)
  • June 2019 (2)
  • May 2019 (1)
  • April 2019 (1)
  • March 2019 (1)
  • February 2019 (1)
  • January 2019 (2)
  • December 2018 (1)
  • November 2018 (3)
  • October 2018 (3)
  • September 2018 (2)
  • August 2018 (1)
  • July 2018 (2)
  • June 2018 (1)
  • May 2018 (2)
  • March 2018 (2)
  • February 2018 (2)
  • January 2018 (1)
  • December 2017 (1)
  • November 2017 (2)
  • October 2017 (2)
  • September 2017 (1)
  • August 2017 (3)
  • July 2017 (3)
  • June 2017 (2)
  • January 2017 (2)
  • December 2016 (2)
  • October 2016 (3)
  • September 2016 (1)
  • August 2016 (1)
  • July 2016 (2)

Favorite Blogs

https://www.onsuttonplace.com

https://missmustardseed.com

http://www.iheartorganizing.com

http://www.southerncurated.com

 

Footer

Copyright 2018 Red Shutter Cottage

Site built by Green Owl Consulting
Privacy | Disclosure Policy

Newsletter

Please sign-up to receive updates of new blog posts!

Copyright © 2021 · Foodie Pro Theme by Shay Bocks · Built on the Genesis Framework · Powered by WordPress