Kitchen Storage Ideas: How to Design a Kitchen Where Everything Has a Place
The best-looking kitchen in the world becomes frustrating to live with if it is under-stored. The search for the right pan, the cluttered worktop, the overflowing corner cabinet: these are daily irritations that good storage design eliminates. This guide covers the storage solutions that make the most significant difference to how a kitchen functions in daily use.
Pan drawers rather than base cabinets
The single most impactful change to kitchen storage in the past twenty years has been the move from base cabinets with doors to deep pan drawers. A pan drawer gives you full visibility and full access to everything stored within it. A base cabinet gives you visibility and access only to the front layer of what is stored, which means items at the back are typically unreachable without removing everything in front of them.
Deep pan drawers should be specified wherever possible in the base run of a kitchen. Two or three deep drawers in a 600mm base unit store more usably than the same unit fitted with a door and a fixed shelf.
The larder unit
A properly designed larder unit is one of the most useful storage elements in a kitchen. A full-height larder with internal pull-out shelves, a dedicated zone for dry goods, space for a stand mixer and other appliances that are used regularly but not daily, and a clear sight line to everything stored within it transforms kitchen organisation. In a kitchen with limited worktop space, a larder unit that stores appliances internally frees the worktop for cooking rather than storage.
Corner solutions
Corner cabinets are the most difficult storage problem in kitchen design and the area where the most space is traditionally wasted. A LeMans pull-out, a carousel, or a corner drawer system makes the corner space genuinely accessible. The choice between these depends on the specific corner configuration and the size of the cabinet, and is worth discussing explicitly with your kitchen designer.
Integrated waste management
A pull-out waste management system within a base cabinet, with separate compartments for recycling and general waste, is a significant quality-of-life improvement over a freestanding bin. It keeps waste out of sight, maintains hygiene, and frees floor space. It is worth including in any kitchen specification from the mid-range upwards.
Visit our York showroom to see our storage solutions in action and discuss your kitchen brief.