This post is all about IKEA kitchen organization ideas. I’m sharing how to plan Ikea kitchen cabinets layout, cabinet drawer vs door, and best Ikea kitchen organizers.
If you are interested in how IKEA kitchen cabinets are holding up after 2 years, and how much IKEA kitchen remodel cost, be sure to check my post Ikea Kitchen Review, as part of the Kitchen Tour Series.
Quick Info on my Ikea kitchen
I have been using our IKEA kitchen cabinet system for over two years. So far I have been really enjoying using it! It is affordable, customized and super functional.
For my small 10′ by 10′ kitchen, I’m pretty happy with its storage capability and organization system, empowered by Ikea kitchen organizers. With the limited footprint and cabinets, I’m able to keep all the essential kitchen appliances (big and small) and kitchen tools organized.
This post is NOT sponsored by IKEA, I just want to share my kitchen ideas and organization hacks. Hope you find them useful 🙂 For IKEA kitchen review, such as pros and cons, visit Ikea kitchen tour part 1.
Ikea kitchen layout for small kitchens
As you might have read in my Ikea kitchen honest review, my kitchen is 10’ by 10’ – a 100 sqft relatively square space. Compare to most American kitchens, it is definitely on the smaller side.
For a quick glance of my kitchen layout, here is a 3D render from IKEA Home Planner tool:
The kitchen is open to dining room, which is pretty much the same size. The big opening on the right is connected to the living room.
Although I would like to have a kitchen island to add more cabinets, with a 10′ by 10′ kitchen, it is impossible to fit an island. And believe me, I have tried every layout trying to squeeze in a decent sized island but it just doesn’t work.
So we followed the original kitchen layout: have a peninsula coming from the left wall, to add extra countertop space and storage.
Because all of those kitchen essentials such as sink, range, fridge will take away some countertop space, having a peninsula is critical in this case to add counter space.
In total, this small Ikea kitchen only has 7 lower cabinets (including one used as a pull-out trash cabinet), and 4 upper cabinets.
Most of the lower cabinets are drawers, with the exception of lazy susan at the corner as part of peninsula, and the cabinet below the sink.
Here’s the kitchen cabinets layout diagram from IKEA Kitchen Planner:
Ikea kitchen organization – zoning
To have a super functional and efficient kitchen, I recommend to start with zoning.
Kitchen is usually packed with thing you use regularly, so having a big picture of how things will be organized is critical during the kitchen design process.
For my Ikea kitchen, I divided my kitchen into 3 essential zones: cleaning zone, prepping zone and cooking zone. Plus two non-traditional zones: storing zone and trash zone.
Here’s a floor plan of all five kitchen zones:
Note each zone doesn’t have to take a lot of space. Sometimes a single kitchen cabinet might just do the trick. Here’s the breakdown of how I’m organizing each zones.
Kitchen cleaning zone:
Generally speaking, sink and dishwasher mark where the cleaning zone is. It is where you wash fruit, veggies and all the other ingredients, or clean up dishes.
Ideally you want the dishwasher and sink to be next to each other, so you can rinse the dishes and load it into dishwasher fairly easily.
Below the sink, it usually makes sense to store household cleaning items, dish soap, sponge, general purpose cleaner, and also dishwasher tablets.
Under sink storage can always be tricky. So I recommend looking into some smart organizers from Ikea, such as shelf insert or organizers attached to a cabinet door.
Kitchen prepping zone:
For prepping zone, I like to store everything I need to prep a meal: serving plates and bowls, utensils, knifes, kitchen gadgets, cutting boards, you name it.
One good idea for better kitchen organization is to keep the prepping zone next to the cleaning zone, so you can unload clean plates from the dishwasher right to a serveware cabinet.
I used Ikea drawer organizer insert to organize all of cutlery items in one small drawer and keep different type of utensils separated.
I stored knives and other long kitchen prepping tools in an upper drawer of Ikea kitchen cabinet for easy access.
Cutting board can be tricky to keep organized and also can take up a lot of precious space in a small kitchen. So it is best to store them vertically to save space.
To store cutting boards in prepping zone, I used a cutting board organizer from IKEA.
It clips right on the edge of an Ikea kitchen drawer. I really enjoy using it as it keep all my cutting boards standing straight, making it a lot easier to store and also to take out.
Kitchen Cooking zone:
A kitchen cooking zone is all about what you need during cooking. For me, I dedicated an entire Ikea kitchen cabinet with three drawers to this zone.
For best organization in this cooking zone, I chose the 3 drawer layout from Ikea kitchen cabinet, with small, medium and large drawers.
I use the top drawer for spatulas with the help of an Ikea drawer organizer.
In the middle drawer, I DIY’ed a spice drawer organizer and use this drawer for all sorts of spices. For the bottom drawer which is the tallest of all three, I store cooking oil and sauces.
If you are interested in keeping your cooking spices organized, be sure to check out my tutorial on how to DIY spice drawer organizer. It’s an easy DIY project, but makes all the difference for a more organized cooking zone.
My kitchen cooking zone is fairly small so I don’t store pots and pans in the zone. Instead, I store them in the storing zone that I will talk about next.
Kitchen storing zone:
I believe most of us probably have a bunch of pots and pans, plus some special cooking appliances such as instant pot, crepe maker, stand mixer, etc.
Honestly, these things takes a lot of space so it’s worth spending some time on figuring out where they can be best organized.
Because most of my Ikea kitchen cabinets are on 18″ wide, it is hard to store those appliances in an efficient way. So Instead I organize them in the corner lazy susan, a 24″ wide lower cabinet with three drawers, and a couple upper cabinets.
Ikea lazy susan cabinet is great if you have a corner to deal with. It offers ample space for pots and pans organization, plus you can take them out easily by just turning lazy susan.
For the 24″ 3-drawer cabinet, I actually use it to store small appliances, their manuals, and kitchen linens.
I also like to use chalkboard labels to mark things.
Kitchen trash zone:
This zone is very straight forward, just one single cabinet unit for trash purpose. Ikea doesn’t have any official kitchen trash cabinet, but you can easily use a tall drawer and place two of their big trash cans inside.
My Ikea trash cabinet uses their 18in base cabinet, with “1 double drawer, 1 drawer” configuration. I was able to fit 2 Ikea 9 gallon trash bins inside the double drawer.
Besides the large trash drawer, you can fit shallow drawer above the trash drawer to store other necessities such as the trash bags – I like to use those compostable 13-gal bags as it is more environment-friendly!
It is also a good size to store cling wrap, parchment paper, and zip-loc bags.
Ikea kitchen organization ideas and hacks
Once you plan out your kitchen zones, you have built a solid foundation for a super functional and organized kitchen.
Here are some additional ideas and hacks that will level up your kitchen organization games. I also recommend some of my favorite kitchen organizers (most of them are from Ikea).
1. Maximizing lower cabinets with drawers
Do you feel like cabinets with drawers can store more things compare to those with doors? I certainly do!
Over the years I have found that having drawers in the lower kitchen cabinet makes it so much easier to store things. When I designed my IKEA kitchen, I made sure to have an assortment of drawer sizes for my lower cabinets.
The strategy of maximizing drawers for Ikea kitchen cabinet worked out great: I can find things I need at a glance by simply pulling out drawers; Taking things out is so easy – no more rearranging things to get something out from the back.
2. Don’t be afraid modify your drawer
Speaking of drawers, one thing I love about IKEA kitchen system is the flexibility to modify kitchen cabinets as the your needs change.
The Ikea Sektion kitchen system has nested drawers that can live inside larger drawers, which makes medium to large sized drawers more space efficient.
When we first built our Ikea kitchen, I didn’t have any nested drawers. After using it for several months, I realized that I needed one more drawer to store bowls.
So I ordered a nested drawer from IKEA and installed it in one of my medium sized drawers. By doing that I was able to combine two gadgets drawer into one, and freed up a whole drawer for serving bowls.
If you have previously used doors instead of drawer for your Ikea kitchen cabinet. You can also easily convert them to drawers.
3. Kitchen appliance ideas to save space
If you have a small kitchen just like I do, be extra mindful when picking appliances for your kitchen.
A counter depth fridge can work pretty well for small kitchens: it takes less space, and makes your kitchen look larger because it doesn’t stick out as much.
I almost bought a traditional range hood, but ended up buying a microwave with vent. Why? because if I get a normal hood for my kitchen, there will be no space for the microwave except on the kitchen counter.
If you like to bake a lot, consider getting a convection microwave, so that you can bake small things in there too if your big oven is occupied.
For range, I got a standard 30″ wide range with bottom pull-out drawer. I love the pull-out drawer quite a lot as it is a perfect place to store baking pans and cupcake molds.
4. Leverage vertical space for kitchen pantry
I have an awkward recessed area in my kitchen wall that is about 60” tall, 30” wide, and 12” deep.
Because of the shallow depth, I wasn’t able to have any lower cabinet there. So we ended up hiring a closet company to add a custom cabinet inside with many shelves that we can use it as pantry.
It is something you can probably DIY too.
I made sure the pantry door style matches my Ikea kitchen so they look seemless.
After converting that awkward space into a pantry cabinet, it has made it super easy for me to grab pantry items as I cook, and we were able to free a bunch of space from the lower kitchen cabinets.
You may not have the exact awkward space to convert into a pantry, but I encourage you to think vertically in terms of pantry organization.
Most pantry items are fairly small, so having some tall and shallow shelf/cabinet will help you so much with storing those those things, such as this billy bookcase that is less than 12″ deep!
Another good option is to invest a pantry shelf if you are more of an open storage person. Imagine how much they can store without really invading your kitchen square footage.
5. Use kitchen drawer organizers
Another way to make drawers more organized is to use drawer organizers. I have used a lot of Ikea drawer organizers in this kitchen.
Besides my DIY spice drawer organizer, I have drawer organizers for utensils, knifes, kitchen gadgets, etc. Since I bought them from IKEA too, they fit my cabinet drawers perfectly! Ikea Variera line has some good quality drawer organizers!
Here are some of the Ikea drawer organizers I purchased:
utensil tray | specula tray | knife tray
Best Ikea Kitchen Organizers
Keeping a kitchen organized is not an easy task, so why not lean onto some super functional organizers? I really like Ikea kitchen organizers because they fit into Ikea kitchen cabinets perfectly and also the cost is pretty low!
Here are a few great Ikea kitchen organizers that can amp up your kitchen organization.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
Ikea Kitchen Organization Summary
So those are my Ikea kitchen organization ideas and hacks for you, as well as the best Ikea kitchen organizers.
This blog post is not sponsored by anyone, so I just want to share my own Ikea kitchen organization ideas with anyone who is interested in having a more efficient kitchen.
This post is the part 2 of my Ikea kitchen tour. If you are interested in Ikea kitchen remodel process, cost and how it is holding up after 2 years, be sure to check out my Ikea kitchen review post, as my Ikea kitchen tour part 1.
Also, I have recently been interviewed by Semihandmade blog sharing my top tips on Ikea kitchen organization. So check out this article here.
More kitchen ideas
Kitchen Tour Part 1 | IKEA Kitchen Honest Review After 2 Years
DIY Spice Drawer Organizer ( with Video) | Kitchen Organization
Small Kitchen Organization: 5 Tips on How to Maximize Storage And Keep Things Organized
Heidi says
Thanks for all the info.
You might be delighted to know that we are just now planning to reconfigure our IKEA kitchen that we installed about 17 years ago!! They definitely hold up! We are hoping to be able to reuse some of our base cabinets and uppers from our original install and add new fronts to get more bang for our buck!!
Kelin says
Wow 17 years! It’s so great to hear how long they hold!
Brooke says
Thanks for all the great info! What colour are your cabinets? Thank you!
Kelin says
the kitchen cabinets are painted in gray owl by BM
Samantha king says
Hi
Could you tell me where the wall tiles are from please?
Thanks
Sam
Jackie says
This would be such a cute way to keep the kitchen organized! Thank you so much for sharing! We are refinishing our kitchen cabinets this month and I want to make sure that after that we keep everything organized and tidy! We will definitely be using some of your tips! Thanks again!
Melissa says
Can you link to the 3 drawer base cabinet that you used with the chalk labels? That’s exactly the drawer/cabinet combo I need! So perfect!
Also, could you link to the neared drawer which you added, I can find that one either! Thank you!
Marcie Springer says
Where did you find the window roman shade?
Kelin says
I linked the source and my review over here (towards the end of the post):
https://hydrangeatreehouse.com/best-farmhouse-roman-shades/
Emily says
I’m prepping for an IKEA kitchen renovation next year and this made me feel so confident that we CAN actually make it work for a small kitchen. thank you so much for such a detailed post. Also – thanks for making me feel like you can still have an amazing-looking kitchen without a regular hood vent and have the microwave above the stove!!!
Kelin says
so happy to hear that my post was helpful in prepping your ikea kitchen reno! good luck with your project 🙂
Jessica R Warfield says
I love this post thank you, I also have an ikea kitchen and always love seeing how people organize their drawers and kitchens. Could you share what flooring you have in your kitchen please?
Thanks!
Kelin says
I used porcelain flooring that looks like wood. I purchased through my contractor at that time but you should be able to find similar ones on the market 🙂
Clarissa Rivera says
Was the cabinet under the apron sink customized?
TJ Sugden says
Hi! How deep (vertically–top to bottom) are the smallest drawers?
Lauren says
Do you mind sharing what the budget for your ikea project was or the range it cost??
Thank you!!
Kelin says
Hi Lauren, because we bundled our kitchen reno with some other foundation renovations such as moving walls, rewiring electrical, replacing water heaters, I don’t have a number of kitchen reno total cost. I do have a cost of Ikea cabinets and door fronts, simply go to my Ikea kitchen review post (linked at the beginning and end of this post)
Cat says
HI! I love your kitchen and how you were so thoughtful in mixing high end and low end elements.
I was wondering if you would mind sharing what kind of countertops and flooring you used? Thank you!
Kelin says
Thanks Cat! I used pure white quartz countertop and porcelain floor tiles. Because they were both sourced through my contractor so I didn’t link any specific source.
Courtney says
Hello,
I love your kitchen! We are redoing our ikea cabinets as well. On your island what did you use for the back of your cabinets facing your dining table? I have only see the plain cover panels.
Kelin says
Hi Courtney, for the peninsular back cover board, I used a 1/2″ MDF and added some 1/4″ mdf as trims to mimic the shaker style.
The reason being semihandmade representative told me I need to get the measurement exact for cover board since the trims are are on four sides, which means I cannot cut it to size. So I ended up DIY’ed it to make sure that cover board and shaker trims fit exactly to my peninsula kitchen cabinets.
Amanda says
Hi! What is the width of cabinet #7 for your trash cans? Which gray trash cans are those? I’m planning a trash zone also but want to make sure the 2 trash cans will fit! Thanks!
Kelin says
Hi Amanda, I used 18″ wide cabinet. It looks like this is the updated version of those trash cans that will fit inside Ikea kitchen cabinet: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/hallbar-bin-with-lid-light-gray-50420206/
Reena says
Hi! I’m doing a kitchen remodel right now and this article was SO helpful, thank you!! I, too, have an awkward, shallow pantry space and am trying to figure out how to maximize the space and also make it look not so ugly! Can you describe more about yours (what it looks like on the inside) or maybe even share a photo? Thank you so very much!!!
Kelin says
Hi Reena, I have took photos of inside the pantry before and you can find them in this post: https://hydrangeatreehouse.com/small-kitchen-organization-5-tips-on-how-to-maximize-storage-and-keep-things-organized/
Hope it helps and good luck with building out your pantry 🙂
Ashley says
What fridge did you purchase, would you recommend it?
Kelin says
I got a Haier HRQ16N3BGS. So far so good.
Jessica Melindy says
I love the prints with the animals. Where are they from?
Kelin says
They were from Target, but no longer available.
Alessia says
Also are those beautiful tiles marble ones?
Kelin says
yes they are white marble
Alessia says
Hello beautiful. Can you tell me which cabinet door did you use for the white kitchen and also for the long grey cabinet on the wall?
Kelin says
I used semihandmade DIY shaker for the doors. The long gray cabinet door is from another company but the goal was to match the rest of the doors.
Ashley says
Hey there! Beautiful kitchen. I’m designing my extremely small kitchen with ikea. What a puzzle! Since you did the same, what cabinet system did you use to insert the refrigerator? Did you just have to put up a slab or something?
Kelin says
I used a fridge top cabinet 36″ long and 24″ deep. The side panels should also be available from ikea kitchen system.