Dawn Matthews | Feb 15, 2024
Five New Ways To Add Storage To Your Kitchen
15 Minute Read
The challenge of finding storage solutions in the kitchen, is often balanced with the desire for stylish options, or the latest kitchen trends. Our opinion is that you can’t go wrong if you keep sustainability at the forefront of your mind, but where to start? In this post, we’re taking a look at some of the best ways to add storage to your kitchen – let’s jump in.
Elevate Your Space with Wooden Floating Shelves
We’ve loved our wooden shelves since we started Ben Simpson Furniture, over a decade ago. The value of a shelf in a kitchen simply cannot be overstated – whether you’re looking for space to store your cook books, your spices, or you simply want to enhance the aesthetic of the space with a plant or two.
If you’re looking for your shelves to be more eye-catching than a sleek floating shelf, then you might consider a bracket shelf, or a pipe shelf. There are so many styles and colourways for a great wooden shelf, and because we make each of our shelves by hand, to order, you can get the exact look, and size, that you want. Read more about how to style your shelves here.
Upgrade Your Wooden Shelves
When space is tight in your kitchen, a shelf helps, but what about the space underneath the shelf? Traditionally, you’d have to add another shelf, or lose out on the space, but now there are better ways to utilise that space – here are two options.
Wine glass racks
Even if you prefer small and dainty wine glasses, they take up quite a lot of space in your cupboards, so why not hang them underneath a shelf? Our metal wine glass rack is designed specifically to keep your glasses to hand, while at the same time keeping them safely out of the way. And if you’ve got beautifully designed wine glasses, then seeing them on display will make you love them even more.
Under shelf rails
For items such as utensils and tea towels that need to be within reach the second you need them, our metal hanging rail is an ideal addition to your shelf. Simply screw into the bottom of your shelf, then add S hooks to make use of them – and then your whisk, potato masher, or colander will always be easy to access, and never prevent you opening a drawer again!
To squeeze even more storage out of this spot, add one of our small hanging baskets to an S hook. They’re great for storing items like sponges, or to add some greenery in the way of your favourite herb plant.
Baskets
If you’re looking for storage solutions that don’t always have to be in the kitchen, then you might want to think about baskets. A gorgeous basket can be put to use almost anywhere in the home, so even if you were to move to a new house, there’s a really good chance that you’ll be able to make use of it – and when you’re aiming for a sustainable home, reusing items is key.
Our range of baskets includes larger styles that can be used for everything from carrying laundry and hiding bulkier items, to gorgeous handwoven bowls that can be used everywhere: inside cupboards, on a shelf, on the side as a fruit bowl, or to draw the eye to your gorgeous wooden dining table.
Hanging Rails
Hanging your tea towel and oven gloves on the oven handle is all well and good, until you’re trying to see what you’re cooking so you can take it out at the perfect moment. By having a dedicated place to keep those items, your kitchen will feel less cluttered, and you’ll always be able to see whether your Yorkshire puddings are rising properly! Our brushed brass metal hanging rail is a gorgeous choice for the end of a cabinet, and looks just perfect in rustic kitchens.
Tiny Storage Tweaks for Your Kitchen
It might be that kitchen drawer that needs sorting out, or it might be a kitchen cupboard that doesn’t make use of the space as well as you’d like – but here are a few great additions you can make to your kitchen for storage.
▪ Cutlery trays inside drawers – an obvious addition, but worth mentioning!
▪ Pot rack organisers and plate racks can help you streamline cupboards.
▪ Place hooks inside cupboard doors to hold pan lids, or find a pot lid rack.
▪ Lazy Susans – a type of turntable – means you’ll always be able to see what you have in your food cupboard.
▪ Storage canisters can give you storage in plain sight, and dry items like pasta and rice look great in glass caddies on a shelf.
▪ Stackable storage shelves, and wire under shelf storage baskets can help you make the most of your cupboard space.
▪ Mug trees next to the kettle can free up storage space, and are ideal to show off your favourite pretty mugs.
▪ Organise beneath your sink with shelf organisers, turntables, and baskets. Make sure whatever storage you choose will stand up to accidental cleaning product spills.
▪ Get bulky items like kitchen foil and wax paper out of drawers and into wire baskets fixed inside cupboard doors to free up space.
There are so many more genius kitchen storage ideas online than we could list here, but whatever you choose, be sure to opt for products made from sustainable materials like wood, metal, and bamboo.
Why Choose Sustainable Storage?
Why would you not want to make your home more sustainable? Looking after our planet is essential, but sustainability doesn’t just mean you’re thinking of the environment when you’re buying furniture and storage. It also means that you’re choosing products that will last, and can be used for years, and in many cases, decades.
Also, have you ever heard the phrase “buy nice, or buy twice”? It definitely applies here, because sustainable materials tend to look and feel much more luxurious, so you’re going to like seeing it in your kitchen – which is so much better than tacky plastic solutions that are more likely to get broken and need replacing quicker.
Don’t forget though, buying sustainable products isn’t where it stops. Keeping your wooden shelving and storage solutions in great condition will ensure that you have it for longer, and reduce the need for you to replace it. Ensure that you treat your wooden furniture periodically with the right wood treatment. This results in a much smaller demand on resources for new items, which is only a good thing for the planet.
Where to Buy Bespoke and Sustainable Storage Solutions
You might initially think that buying bespoke furniture is going to be expensive and probably out of your budget. While entirely bespoke pieces that are built in are definitely going to cost more than a storage hack involving flatpack furniture, bespoke doesn’t necessarily mean out of reach. Let’s say you have a bit of kitchen wall that is an odd size, but that would look great with a shelf on it, and give you a crucial bit of storage – perhaps above your kettle, for your tea and sugar caddies. Buying a shelf that is cut and finished at the perfect size and colour is easier than you think, because we can do exactly that for you.
All of our furniture is handmade to order, and so we can easily tailor our products to the nearest 5mm – which, in the majority of cases, going to look as near perfect as you can get without a carpenter doing the job for you. If you’re looking for one of our shelves in a specific size, simply select the nearest standard length to the size you’re looking for, and then leave a note in the comments section in your cart, telling us the bespoke length that you need. We’ll then make it happen for you, and when it is delivered, you’ll have everything you need to fit the shelf perfectly. It isn’t just shelves we can tailor to the size you want though – we can alter our kitchen tables, benches, and more.
Sustainability is at the forefront of everything we do, from buying ten trees for every one we use in our furniture, to distributing our sawdust to the local farms that use it for their cattle, and our offcuts get turned into kindling for fires. You can read more about our sustainability promise here – and we’re always looking for ways to improve our sustainability too.
Our Final Thoughts
Finding the right storage to your kitchen can feel difficult, and many cheap solutions that are readily available are not sustainable, or contain a lot of plastic. But with a little thought, our suggestions, and searching online, you’ll find that there are plenty of ways to add storage, without it needing to contain environmentally unfriendly products. When you’ve added your storage solution – especially if you’ve added one of our shelves, rails, or baskets – then tag us in your Instagram posts @bensimpsonfurniture. We love to see them!
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