Organizing Pots and Pans – Day 11
One of the most frustrating parts I find in organizing a kitchen is how to organize pots and pans. It can often look like a “hot” mess (sorry for the ridiculous pun), but really, pots and pans can cause quite the clutter! Thankfully ovens typically have a built-in drawer below that hides a lot of the mess, but even that drawer too, can often get stuck because of how full it gets.
Lets call it what it is – pots and pans are awkward, they take up a lot of space, but ya can’t really live without ’em.
So whether you keep them in the drawer below the oven or in a cupboard, pots and pans can be a frustrating mess. How do you contain your pots and pans when they are so big, bulky, and loud when you take them out? Here is a place to start:
Take Out
Find all of the pots and pans you have, from cookie sheets, to 9x13s, to pots you make soup in. Take them all out.
Ask
- Do I use it? When was the last time?
- Do I have a duplicate?
- Do I have something else that will work?
- What is it’s purpose?
- It is worn out? (peeling, scratched, etc.)
- Is it deformed?
- Do I have a lid to correspond with the pot?
- Does it need to be fixed?
Decide and Donate
Figure out what you no longer need and donate it (if it is something you would buy at a thrift store). This step may take some time. Don’t just glance over everything quickly and think “oh I’ll use it someday…” Decide if you need five 9x13s. Decide if you need 3 cookie sheets. Remember the goal is to walk out of this day living with LESS.
Store
Put all of the pots and pans you only use on occasion in another spot. Reason being, this allows more room for what you use on a regular basis, if space is tight. For example, I keep my large pot in another closet because I only use it not even once a month.
Organize
Think about what the best way is for you to organize them. I personally keep all of my pots and covers on one shelf. Then I stack all of my 9x13s and muffin pans on another shelf. I keep all of our cookie and baking sheets in the drawer under the oven. Some homes allow the space to use a hanging rack, to hang pots.
It’s A Process
It may take a few tries to find the best system that works for you. The biggest challenge is to not keep pots and pans for when you “might” use them someday. If you are keeping certain pots for a specific meal, will another pot suffice? Could you use two for the time being if needed?
Next time you need to grab a pot or pan out of the cupboard or drawer, hopefully they don’t get stuck and hopefully you are not overwhelmed with that amount of pots and pans you own. For the past year or so, I have had the same number of pots and pans and though I sometimes feel it is not very many, I am very please with the number I have. Hopefully you can get to that point too.
