Category Archives: kitchen storage

Clever Kitchen Cabinet Storage Ideas Can Mean More Home-Cooked Meals

What do kitchen cabinet storage ideas have to do with obesity? Bear with me, and you’ll see…

Research indicates that the more time we spend on preparing food for our families, the healthier we tend to eat. However, we can’t magically conjure up more time in a day (and how many of us have wished we had more than the measly 24 hours to get everything done?), but we can set up our kitchens to be more efficient to make cooking easier. That’s where kitchen cabinet storage ideas come into play.

Not cooking equals not healthy
Americans already spend less time on cooking and cleanup than other countries, and often we’re eating out or eating dinners we didn’t cook. It turns out we now eat faster too. At the same time, we have an obesity rate that’s much higher than other countries. Coincidence? Probably not. Again and again, researchers point to lack of time as a factor.

Family dinners have significant benefits
But cooking and eating at home can make a significant difference, with family dinners proven to have many benefits for kids, from healthier diets to better grades. That means, getting back to the kitchen is well worth the effort. And with today’s clever kitchen cabinet storage ideas, the family member doing the cooking can reduce that kitchen time by at least a little bit.

Clever kitchen storage makes cooking and cleanup easier
Clever kitchen cabinet storage ideas can make utensils and cookware easier to find and put to use. A handy pull-out spice rank shows you right away that yes, you do have paprika. Appliance garages keep countertops clear. And a well-organized kitchen makes cleaning up easier, because the kids will know where everything goes!

In addition, modern appliances are constantly getting more high tech, which can also be a boon to the home cook, as we preheat our ovens while on the way home from work, and let the fridge keep track of the groceries we need.

If you’re planning a new kitchen, give serious thought to the kitchen cabinet storage ideas you can have built right in, when using semi custom cabinets. If you design your kitchen with efficiency in mind from the very start, you can buck the trend and cook your meals at home, for healthier bodies, minds and families.

Love to Entertain? 5 Tips for Designing a Party-Ready Kitchen That Lightens Your Load!

OK, I know not everyone likes to entertain. A friend just canceled a baby shower because she was so intimidated by the idea of having a party in her home. But I suspect she’s in the minority. Most people I know loooove to entertain, including me. There’s just something about creating a fun atmosphere for your friends and feeding them well, plus a little bit of showing off too, if we’re honest.

Not that it’s not work! Entertaining can be a lot of work, but the smiles on friends’ faces make it all worthwhile. And when you’re designing a new kitchen, you can take steps to build one that’s set up for entertaining, so it’s less work but still just as much fun.

We combed expert kitchen designer resources for ideas on creating a party-ready kitchen, and list our five favorites below. Whether you prefer casual or formal, football games or fine wine tastings, intimate dinners or busy brunches, you’ll find tips you can put to use in your new kitchen design…

  1. Include a kitchen island in your design. With a kitchen island, you’ll get extra storage space, plus counter space and seating. An island can be just about any shape you can imagine, even when you’re using semi-custom cabinets. Although a rectangle shape works, consider an L-shaped kitchen island or even a U-shaped one.
  2. Factor in storage. If you entertain large crowds, you’ll have more dishes, more glassware, more booze and more food to store. Work with your kitchen design or kitchen cabinet manufacturer to come up with clever storage for everything entertaining.
  3. Add in appliances. Could you use a wine fridge? What about a second oven? A warming oven? Do you need two dishwashers after a big to-do? Make room for the extra appliances you’ll need when partying as you plan out your semi custom cabinets.
  4. Consider the traffic flow. People congregate in kitchens. There isn’t anything you can do about that. The kitchen is the heart of the home all the time, but seems to be even more so during a party! Make sure you’ll still be able to cook and clean even with guests around.
  5. Count on your countertops. For those who like to entertain a lot, trouble-free countertops are a must. You don’t want to be worried about red-wine stains when you’re trying to be a pleasant host or hostess. But also think about how much countertop you’ll want when it’s party time. Will you have enough prep space? Do you use countertops for seating at the kitchen island? Will you serve up buffet style? Get creative to meet your needs. You can include pull-out counter or table space in your kitchen that hides away when not needed, for example, and appliance garages that get clutter out of the way.

Above all when designing your new kitchen with entertaining top of mind and semi custom cabinets at the top of your list, make sure your choices will maximize your fun as well as your guests.

Kitchen Storage Ideas Enable Efficiency and Tidiness in Today’s Busy Kitchens

It has never been easier to have a well-organized, efficient kitchen. In addition to state-of-the-art kitchen appliances that give you the kind of control formerly only available to professional chefs and the convenience of Internet-enabled appliances, storage is now state-of-the-art as well. Kitchen storage ideas can be found all over Pinterest, and even on our website!

From pot lids to dishes to waste bins to liquor bottles, kitchen storage ideas abound for storing just about every imaginable pot, gadget, bowl or small appliance in a way that tucks it out of sight when it is not needed yet makes it easily accessible when it is.

Kitchen storage ideas keep this busy room tidy
In a way, this evolution of kitchen storage ideas makes perfect sense, because kitchens have evolved into multipurpose rooms where we not only cook and clean up, but also eat, socialize, work and relax. We’re also much more creative in the kitchen these days, and we use a lot of tools and equipment to help us get the cooking done.

All of that means the kitchen is a very busy room with a lot of moving parts, and without kitchen storage ideas that keep pieces out of the way until needed, the kitchen could easily become a very messy room at the same time!

Clever kitchen ideas can customize your new kitchen
If you’re designing your dream kitchen, and you’re planning to pull together a kitchen that’s uniquely you, think past the look of your kitchen to consider the storage too. Clever kitchen ideas can play a key part in customizing your new kitchen so it not only looks unique to you but functions that way as well, making it the ultimate in efficiency for how you like to cook.

Only take a quick look at the kitchen storage ideas on the Wellborn Forest website, and you’ll see utensil organizers, skinny pantry pullouts that make use of skinny spaces, dish drawers with adjustable pegs, and even a removable rollout caddy that holds cleaning supplies. All of these components can be combined in the way you want for your ideal kitchen.

Kitchen storage today means no more jumbled drawers one digs through to find the one-third measuring cup, or pulling out the blender so you can reach the waffle iron at the back of the cabinet. (Yes, I’m describing real-life experiences here!) Instead, the clever kitchen ideas thought up by professionals and amateurs alike have led to kitchen storage ideas that can keep our kitchens tidy and clutter-free, while making increasing their efficiency—and ours as well.

Kitchen Storage Solutions Abound with Ingenuity–and Semi Custom Cabinets

Although we’re well into 2017, we’re still paying attention to the trends predicted at the beginning of the year. When we look at top kitchen design trends for 2017, clever storage solutions definitely top the list. From the ingenious DIY creations to the farmhouse-styled elements to the built-in options offered by cabinet manufacturers, kitchen storage solutions abound.

When it comes to useful fixes to storage problems, it can be as simple as a magazine box attached to the inside of a cabinet door to provide storage for foil and wax paper boxes. Or it can be as elaborate as a pantry hidden behind barn doors. Kitchen storage can be as ad hoc as vintage baskets on a shelf or as well-designed as semi custom cabinets built exactly to your specifications to fit an unusual space.

Clever kitchen storage solutions using semi custom cabinets
Only visit Pinterest or turn to Google and you’ll find hundreds of clever kitchen storage ideas from the simple to the sophisticated. Below you’ll find only a handful of the many ideas we’ve seen that use semi custom cabinets to provide extremely efficient storage space:

  • Check out the pullout bar in this kitchen, where a very narrow space has been cleverly converted into storage for liquor bottles using what we call a wall filler pullout.
  • Adding transom cabinets adds storage, especially when you put transom cabinets above the kitchen window.
  • When choosing your semi custom cabinets, have a bookshelf built in for your cookbooks. In this kitchen, the bookshelves are on the end of the wall, but they could be built in to any part of your cabinetry or even your kitchen island.
  • Or use that awkward space to make a cabinet for your broom, mop and cleaning supplies, as in this example.
  • Workspace that you pull out only when you need it isn’t exactly a storage solution, but it is a space saver—which is almost the same thing. As an added bonus, for those of us who are a little shorter, a roll-out baking area like this one puts the work surface at the right height for kneading dough.

Make storage solutions part of your semi custom cabinets
On our website, you can find all kinds of kitchen storage solutions you can include in your design when choosing your semi custom cabinets. You’ll find utensil organizers, wall-filler pullouts, pull-down drawers, wooden pegs you can use to organize drawer space, waste bin drawers, knife-block drawers, spice drawers and door mounts, even a bread drawer and a removable caddy that rolls out and can be picked up and carried—perfect for cleaning supplies!

Your clever kitchen storage solution might be something as simple as hanging coffee cups from hooks or wine glasses from a DIY-built shelf. But with all the functional ways you can add storage to your new kitchen with semi custom cabinets, it’s worth looking into your options for building in that storage from day 1—as cute as those vintage baskets might be.

Note: To make the most of your new kitchen, and to optimize the storage and functionality of that kitchen—even with all of these ingenious ideas—we still suggest you work with a kitchen designer who can help to ensure you’re using the space as efficiently as possible.