The organized kitchen

• Compartmentalize your cupboards

To keep your kitchen cupboards from becoming a jumble of boxes, bags and cans, gather some flat-bottomed rectangular baskets or small wooden or cardboard boxes — shoe boxes are usually ideal. Line up the containers on the shelves and reserve each for a different kind of food — one for sugar, syrups and other sweet things, one for baking-related items like flour and bicarbonate of soda and so on. If you use boxes, you can paint them to blend with your kitchen’s colour scheme. Whether you decorate them or not, label the containers with their contents so you don’t confuse sugar with salt.

• Organize spices by style of cuisine

Is your spice rack a mess? Can’t find the cumin when you need it? Arrange spice bottles in a low-sided, unlidded box (old cigar boxes work brilliantly) by type of cuisine. So whenever you’re cooking Italian food (or Chinese, French, Thai, Indian or Middle Eastern), the appropriate spices will be together in one place. Cumin, tamarind, coriander and chillies? Probably Indian or Thai. Tarragon, parsley, sorrel and bay? French. Label each box according to its nationality and hopefully, whenever you’re in the mood for that style of cuisine, your search for the right spices will be kept to a minimum.

• A new rack means fewer rackets

If you are fed up with having to take the pots and pans out of a cupboard to get to the baking trays on the bottom, transfers a metal desk file organizer to the kitchen. This compartmentalized metal rack will allow you to store baking trays, Swiss roll tins and thin wooden or acrylic cutting boards vertically. As a result, you will be able to pluck flat items out of a crowded cupboard with ease.

• Newspaper buffers for non-stick cookware

When you nest non-stick saucepans one inside the other in kitchen cupboards, it’s very easy to scratch the delicate coating. Keep your non-stick cookware scratch-free by simply tucking a newspaper sheet between each pot.

• Rack ’em up

Rummaging through a cluttered cupboard full of pots and pans in order to find a matching lid can be an exercise in extreme frustration. A solution to the problem is in your toolbox. Just mount an ordinary towel rack or two on the back of the cupboard door and slide in the lids between rack and door. The knobs on the lids will stop them from falling through the rack.

• Keep your storage lids on

If you’ve ever found the perfect storage container for a batch of pasta sauce or soup, but the container lid has made its way elsewhere entirely, you can stop it from happening again by keeping all the lids together. Store them inside one of the larger storage containers.

• Storing fine china safely

When stacking fine china in the cupboard, keep dinner plates scratch-free by alternating them with paper plates. For salad plates and saucers, use coffee filters. China teacups are best stored right-side up. If the cupboard won’t take all the cups, create an extra tier of shelf space by putting a plastic-coated wire rack inside. But why not hang the cups from hooks attached to the bottom of the shelf above? Hooks are fine for everyday china, but hanging antique teacups means that they will be bearing their own weight — a bad idea if you want to give these heirlooms the tender loving care they deserve.

• Let it slide

In some wooden kitchen cupboards, drawers sit on wooden slides on the bottom rather than lubricated metal slides at the sides. Dirt can accumulate on the slides and opening and closing drawers may be difficult. Clean the wooden slides with soap and water. Then, when the slides are dry, rub candle wax on all wood-to-wood contact points. Friction-worn wooden slides can also be easily fixed with the insertion of one or two smooth-headed upholstery tacks.

• Multi-purpose furniture

If you have an old china cabinet lurking in the attic or garage, put it to use in the kitchen. Turn it into storage for spices, measuring cups and baking equipment or anything you don’t use all the time that clutters your cupboards.

• Hats off to plates

Whether you keep inheriting piles of plates from relatives or you can’t resist them at second-hand markets and antique fairs, don’t let them overrun your cupboards. Use old hatboxes to store plates on top of each other, separated by pieces of soft cardboard or paper plates. Label then store them in the attic or a garage shelf.

• Sheathe your kitchen knives

Sharp cooking knives can be dangerous, so never keep them loose in a drawer. If you don’t have benchtop space for a knife holder, create protective sheaths for knives from cardboard tubes (from paper towels and plastic wrap, etc.). Just flatten a tube, fold over one end and staple or tape it closed, and then slide a knife in the other end. For smaller knives, use toilet paper tubes.

• Keep small appliances in clear plastic containers

If your kitchen benchtops are in such a mess that you can’t find the coffee grinder behind the electric pepper mill, large, clear plastic storage containers are a great way to keep small tools that are used infrequently out of the way, but still in sight.

• Repackage dried food to save space

If kitchen cupboard space is cramped, repackage the dried food products that you buy. Gain precious room by transferring most of your dry food into see-through plastic containers (and then label and date them). Flat rectangular containers work best, as they’re stackable and ideal for storing tea bags, dried beans, rice, pasta and cereal.

• Ready-made picnic carriers

A six-pack cardboard container (the kind used for cans or bottles of beer) is ideal for carrying picnic supplies from the kitchen to the car or a picnic site. Bind plastic utensils with a rubber band and put them in one compartment, then fill the other compartments with picnic paraphernalia such as rolled-up napkins, salt and pepper shakers, squeeze bottles of tomato sauce, mustard or mayonnaise and an insect repellant.

• Smart idea for storing leftovers

If you have a label-maker, this is an idea that may not have occurred to you. Store all of your leftovers on the same shelf in the fridge, then label the shelf so no one forgets where to put them. If you don’t have a label-maker, make your own label and tape it onto the rim of the shelf with clear tape. Designating a leftovers shelf and labelling it will help to keep your fridge odour-free (and it’s less likely that leftover Chinese takeaway will linger there for months on end), and you’ll save money on food.

• A movable sweet bin

When organizing kitchen cupboards with the aid of baskets or boxes, keep a special one for sweets. Either place the treats bin on a low shelf that the children can reach or on a high shelf where it’s out of reach.

• Three-ring recipes

A box will keep your recipe cards all in one place, but a three-ring binder can go one better. Slip the cards into the pocketed plastic photo holders made for ring binders. Arrange recipes by type and then tape a coloured plastic file tab onto the first page of each category: soups, chicken dishes and so on. Using a binder will make it easier to browse through your cards and choose the perfect recipe for the occasion.