How to Streamline a Kitchen | A Happy Home

Learn some simple organizational tips to streamline a kitchen and help things run a little more smoothly at home.

Things can get chaotic and the kitchen is the heart of the home. Let me share some ways I have simplified things in my kitchen.

This post is not sponsored. I actually use these products and want to share them with you. This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Streamline a Kitchen- Dishes

The first thing to look at is what you eat off of. Since becoming an adult, I’ve gone through a range of different styles of plates and cups and bowls. Plastic, ceramic, glass, porcelain, metal. A majority of our marriage we have had mismatched sets of dinnerware. We had complete sets but kids break things. You’ve got to have dishes you can count on if you’re trying to run a home.

Although I can’t totally blame my kids. I have a knack for punching things as they drop instead of catching them. That usually results in them shattering.

So many ceramic plates are beautiful but they chip so easily! And what was cute five years ago is kind of dated now. I gave away all of our plates and bought what my mother-in-law has. Plain, white, durable, light-weight, Corelle plates and bowls. You can find them here.

As a short person, I have to really reach to put away the dishes. A whole stack of ceramic plates was crazy heavy! I am amazed at how light these Corelle dinner plates are. And they are durable! We’ve had them for about a year and none of them are broken! It’s a miracle!

Mugs are dumb

I also threw out all of our cups. Half of them were in the backyard anyway. Or they were chipped and mismatched old Christmas mugs. Mugs are irritating. They take up a ton of room and they’re so wobbly when you try to stack them. I looked around and found STACKABLE MUGS! Amazing! You can easily stack three of them and they’re plain white too. Timeless! Find them here.

***UPDATE***

These specific mugs aren’t available just now (about a year after making this post, I guess you gotta get stuff quick or they might be gone) but here are a couple other sets that are very similar:

This one

And This one

I needed to find some more durable cups that weren’t plastic. Those just get gross really fast and don’t survive being left outside usually. I ended up purchasing stainless steel cups. They are awesome! They stack really well and are really durable. I have personally witnessed these being stepped on, thrown, buried in the dirt and left in water for a couple days. These babies are really holding up! Find them here.

Look in your drawers.

This one is a game-changer. We had two overflowing tubs from the dollar store jammed in the pantry. They were always spilling and we could never find what we needed. They were awkward to stack and they took up too much room. Solution?

Put your spices in a drawer. Make sure the labels are facing up for quick scanning.

I can’t believe how much of a difference this made! Now I can clearly see what we have and locate it instantly. Such a time-saver!

Streamline a Kitchen-Pantry

I like to bake. Usually sugar and flour come into the house in bulk bags. Before, I would just have the bags folded over and clipped in the pantry. I was asking for a mess.

When I was a kid, one of my siblings had the brilliant idea to rip open a bag of flour and cover the kitchen floor. It was much easier to slide around on with a thick coat of powder. We had a great time slipping all around and throwing it at each other. I still remember it turning into dough as my mom tried to wash it out of my hair.

To avoid history repeating itself, I looked for four things in a container:

• big enough for the flour and sugar bags
• open and close easily
• has a some seal with the lid
• intended for food

I found dog food containers work the best! There is a lid that opens and closes easily with a latching handle thing. It has a gasket to give it an airtight seal. They’re big enough to store flour, sugar, rice. Because they’re frosted plastic, you can see when you’re running low. They come with casters so you can wheel them around too.

I’ve had them for around six months now and there are two drawbacks I’ve come across. The casters fall out regularly and there is a very strong, weird, plastic smell. I cleaned the bins out when I got them but they still smell. I was worried it would effect the taste of the flour and sugar. Happily it does not! Find them here.

A Few More Things to Streamline a Kitchen

1. Use clothes pins to close bags. They’re cheap and effective!
2. Put things in containers but don’t use chalk markers to label your pantry bins. It’s cute but it rubs off and smudges like crazy. Just keep some extra labels if you want to change the contents.

3. Find a way to get your extra paper towels off the floor. Nathan created a spinning rack from a wooden closet rod to keep them tucked away against the wall. The rod pivots so the rolls go on or off easily. We can fit a ton of rolls in our small pantry now!
4. Keep a square laundry basket in the kitchen for recycling. It gives it a spot and makes it easy for the kids to take out to the recycling.

5. Use can organizers for your canned food. It keeps them rotated and tidy.

Here’s a list of the products I talked about

Corelle Dish Set

Stainless Steel Cups

Stacking Mugs

Large Flour and Sugar Bins

Can Organizer – I couldn’t find the exact kind I have but I found similar ones.

Don’t forget to pin it!

Thanks for stopping by!

I hope these tips were useful! Let me know in the comments what you do to simplify and streamline your kitchen!