147 | Practical Home Organizing Solutions – Under the Kitchen Sink Storage

Getting organized for the longterm means following tried and true methods that you know, will get you the desired results that you’re looking for. Specific locations can require a little bit more attention to detail in terms of product solutions and placements because you really want to optimize the organization that best fits your needs.

Cabinets under the kitchen sink can be a little bit tricky, but even for those unconventional spaces, there are storage options. There are solutions that will work in your specific space.

 [00:01:00] Today, we are going to talk about how you can organize the cabinet under your kitchen sink. And that space can often be difficult to organize because there’s things like garbage disposals that are in the way pipes sticking out, cords all over the place. All of those things can make it difficult to figure out what products you need that will [00:02:00] actually get your space organized so that you can find what you need when you’re looking for it.

Yeah. So that you can have things easily accessible to you and not have things lost in the back or to what seems like the impossible to get to because you can’t reach them. You can’t actually get your hand around. The areas that you are trying to. To utilize really? But before that, I want to remind you that on these tip Tuesday episodes, I answer listener questions.

The best way for you to submit a question to me is to go to intentional edit.com and click on the little button that says record. And now that button pops up, it’ll be on the bottom or the side of your screen. All you have to do is hit that button and then it will open up a screen for you where you can leave a voice message for me, follow the prompts, leave the voicemail, ask the question and you don’t even have to ask it in question form.

You can just explain to me what you were frustrated with. [00:03:00] What is overwhelming? You right now will let me know what space in your home is a constant stressor and you’re struggling with how to organize it, whatever you think I can help you with go to intentional, edit.com. Click on that record now button. And then I will respond to your question or whatever message you leave by coming up with a solution for you and solving the problem on a future tip Tuesday episode of the intentional edit podcast.

It really could not be easier. You don’t have to send an email, you don’t have to type anything and you don’t have to search for anything. Just go to intentional, edit.com and click on that record. Now button to leave me the message so that we can put it into that overwhelm and reduce the stress that you feel that is caused by things happening in the home lack of organization, lack of systems. The need to declutter however i can help you i would love to so go to intentional edit.com and click that record now [00:04:00] button and leave your question for me and we’ll come up with a solution on a future tip tuesday episode

The question that came in, that I’m going to be answering for today’s episode. Is this. Trying to organize the house with what I’m learning from your podcast. Have you talked about how to deal with the below the kitchen sink area? The pipes in chords are in the way, and it always sees messy. How do you advise handling this area below the kitchen sink cabinet?

This area can absolutely be a stressful and kind of annoying to organize, but I will tell you that it’s absolutely possible to get it dialed in and. Really organize it so that you can utilize it and make things easy. In terms of accessing what you need to. And the thing is that you want a store down there, you can easily get in and out without struggling around all of those big objects. Like she mentioned in the question, the pipes and the cords and the [00:05:00] garbage disposal is a huge one that usually takes up a significant amount of space and it makes it so you can’t get things in and out or you have to work around it.

 Just like most of the other spaces that we organize, there is a process and we have to follow a plan. So the first thing that you’re going to do is take everything out of this cabinet, get it all out, and we’re going to take inventory and purge what is in there. Go through the thing is that you are removing and see what you actually want to keep. What is expired? Has something been leaking? Do you have anything cracked or broken?

What can you toss and what do you actually want to keep? And what do you want to keep down there? What makes sense to have in this space? Sometimes? Thing is just get shoved in the back and they don’t really make sense to have below the sink. Now, everyone has a different space. That is the size of this cabinet. And depending on what type of sink you [00:06:00] have, how deep it is.

Sometimes the sink hangs down and. Kind of interferes with that cabinet space and sometimes it doesn’t again. We are going to organize based on what the current needs are for this space and our home that we have today, we’re solving the problem for the space. That is our current situation. In my old house, I had a corner sink.

And the cabinet underneath. It was huge. I can’t tell you, it went so far back. That it didn’t make sense to have things back there that I would need to get easily because I don’t even think I could reach my entire arm to the very back of that cabinet. So I use that as a place to put. The paper towels. I buy the package of paper towels from Costco and it takes months and months and months, and months and months for us to get through those and use those.

So that was a great place to have those all stacked up on top of each other, taking [00:07:00] up a good portion of that cabinet because I could utilize the space in the back from top to bottom. It was also a very tall cabinet because since it was a corner cabinet, The space was available up high behind the sink in the rear part of that cabinet. So it was huge most kitchen cabinets, unless you have a corner situation like that are not going to be big when it is the cabinet. That is for the sick. A lot of times they don’t have a drawer space because the sink is in the way of that.

It might have a little thing that folds out at an angle. But that’s going to be tiny. That would be a great space to put sponges or something. Some mall that you need to get. That just takes up a little bit of that space, because that is a tiny little thing that just flops open, and then you push your clothes, but the big cabinet under the sink, it might be a big cabinet, but when you open it up and you take into account, all of the things like the garbage disposal, if you have a reverse [00:08:00] osmosis system or any water filtration system down there,

They’re the pipes that stick out or come down the cord or different things for plugs. All of that stuff takes up space. So to properly organize it, you still have to go through the steps. You have to take everything out. You have to purge the things that you no longer need, use, or want, or don’t make sense to have down there and determine at this time what is going to stay. So I want you, at this point to group the light items, just washer detergents can go together.

Hand soaps can go together. Packages of different things that you might have down there. Gloves for washing dishes. Any types of cleaners that you keep below the kitchen sink. Refills for different things, sponges, scrubbers, brushes, anything that is down there that you want to stay down there, group these things in like items, and then take a minute to wipe out and clean that cabinets. Get [00:09:00] it nice and clean. And the hint that you are going to get a.

Tape measure a pen and a piece of paper, and you’re going to draw the basic rectangle of the kitchen cabinet. And start measuring. You’re going to need to measure the length, the width and the height of the cabinet. If there is a center piece that. Is in the middle of where the door’s closed. You want to make sure that that is in there. So, you know, the actual opening where things can get in and out.

And then you’re going to use your artists to skills and put things in like the garbage disposal. It was my artist skills. It would look like a big blob. You wouldn’t even know what it is, but then I would measure and I would know on there, how many inches do I have from the base of the cabinet to the bottom of where the garbage disposal thing hangs down.

How many inches do I have from front to back? Not just of the cabinet, but when a pipe is sticking out or [00:10:00] hanging down, what space does that take up? Because the point of the measuring is to figure out what kind of containment can you use that will fill up the space. And make it so that you have the correct storage.

And storage that fits. Oftentimes we know what storage will fit in a regular cabinet, but it’s not going to work in a cabinet where you have something big hanging down or a pipe sticking out, or any of these scenarios that we’re talking about. So once you have your measurements, Figured out and you have all of this information written down and you have your piles because you have your different things grouped by line item and you know, what is going to say, then we’re going to figure out what is the best type of containment for the space. I love lazy Susans or turntables in this type of scenario. But again, you have to be careful because if it’s. A lazy Susan that takes up most of the space and it’s big enough to spin around. It’s big enough to fit in there. If you have [00:11:00] tall things.

When it goes to spin and they might be. Bumped or knocked over by something that is hanging down and you don’t want that to be the situation or it won’t stay organized because they either get stuck or they fall over and fall out. And it’s not a good solution. So sometimes the lazy Susans are turntables work in a space like this, and sometimes they don’t, there’s just simply not enough room.

I do realize that a turntable comes in many sizes. Nine inch 11 inch, 15 inch. And I’m sure many other sizes in between there’s even little tiny ones, which don’t make that much sense because if they’re super small, You don’t really need to spin around and you can just reach in and grab. So think about that. If that would be a good solution for spray bottles or cleaners or different things that you want to spin around.

 A container that has a lid for anything that could expire or that you want to keep from going [00:12:00] bad, like the dishwasher, tablets, or. Any solution that you want to have in a container with a lid on it. Measure where that would go. And think. Where do these things go? That makes sense. The, if the dishwasher is to the left of the sink, if you have the space, then the cleaning solutions that you’re going to use, the detergent for the dishwasher should go in the cabinet. That’s on the left side.

You want to think ease of retrieval. And if you can grab that with one hand, fill up your dishwasher and put it back. That would be the easiest solution in that situation. What else would be good if a turntable doesn’t fit? There are stackable drawer units, usually two or three drawers. Sometimes they are individual and you can purchase them.

Pending on the door. Sometimes it’s an entire unit. They come in a very wide to extremely narrow. So you will take the measurements again and figure out what do you need? [00:13:00] A lot of times putting extra dish towels. Sponges. The extra cleaning thing is that our not an actual solution, but the things like the sponges can go in a shorter drawer, that’s on the bottom. And then the taller drawer. If it’s open on the top, it actually does not have a top piece. Then you can put different.

Dish soaps, cleaning solutions, things like that. And you can still open and close those areas. Or have a drawer unit with the top piece and the top becomes another shelf to put other things on. Think about ease of retrieval when you are trying to do the organization. So the two products that can be good and the situation are the turntable and the stackable Jordy units. And also just anything like a plastic basket or a small tub or tote that is in some type of like plastic or acrylic container, so that if these things that are usually stored down there are liquid. If they leak or spill, [00:14:00] you can take that out and just clean that one thing. I have a multi-purpose ban from the container store in the back of my under sink cabinet. And it is the backstock it’s the extras.

So it’s the big bag of. The dish soap that needs to be refilled the hand soap, the extra sponges and all of that stuff is in there. I have to move. What is in the front to get to that? But it’s not a big deal because though that container is very rarely used because it’s the backstock, it’s just what I use to refill from.

Those are a lot of tips and that should solve your problems when you are going to tackle this space for organization, you can head to the store with your measurements and your list. And even take a picture on your phone of the items that you have that you want to store. So you don’t forget when you get there or just go to the computer and look up the items that would best fit your space. Check the measurements on the [00:15:00] products that you are thinking about purchasing to avoid a headache and.

Oh, boy, those returns use the strategies that I’ve shared with you today to optimize how you organize the under the St. Kitchen cabinet and keep it organized, make sure everything has a place and everything that you needed to use daily or multiple times a day is front and easy to get to so that it has an easy reach.

Thank you for listening to this two Tuesday episode. Don’t forget to go to intentional edit.com. Click on the record now button and leave me your struggles. Ask your questions. And I will answer those on a future tip Tuesday episode. I mean, Shabak your leader in the week for the next intentional edit podcast episode.