Four clever kitchen storage tricks from Cherie Barber

By Cherie Barber

While we’d all love a massive bank of kitchen cupboards and a walk-in pantry, the average kitchen struggles to meet the modern demand for copious storage and sprawling bench space. Often, it’s a matter of making better use of the space we’ve got.

So here are four suggestions to either help you make your current kitchen function better or incorporate into your kitchen reno:

Shelve your plans

This is probably the easiest solution when you’re short on space. All you need is a stretch of wall, and up go the shelves, providing a place to display prized objects or practical storage space for plates and cups. IKEA’s Lack shelves, with their concealed mounting brackets, are a favourite. Otherwise hardware stores have plenty of cheap options.

Drawer the line

For base cabinets, nothing beats deep drawers. It means you can easily see and reach everything without having to scrabble around in the recesses of a cupboard. The more, the better, in my books. For tricky corner cupboards which often end up as dead space, consider a carousel, like the Utrusta from IKEA or the 270-degree carousel from Arova.

Pull some tricks

While not everyone has space for a walk-in pantry, companies like Hafele have a lot of enterprising solutions that compact a load of storage into narrow spaces. The pull-out pantry allows all the contents to be visible, just like in a standard pantry.

Hide and seek

Benchtop clutter takes up valuable space, so be sure to find a spot for the microwave either under bench in an island or in a cupboard or pantry – it’s not exactly a showpiece you need to leave on display. An appliance cupboard is the perfect solution if you have space.

And nobody needs to see an overflowing garbage bin in your kitchen. Always consider including a slideout garbage bin inside your base cabinets, so you don’t have an ugly bin centre stage in your smart new kitchen!

–Cherie Barber is the director of Renovating for Profit, a company that teaches everyday people how to buy and renovate properties for a profit.