DIY - Kitchen Organization Ideas

One of my goals this year is to bring organization to most of the rooms in our house. I used to be an organized person, but lately with all the projects I get myself into, that organization has been less than desired.

The kitchen is one of the spaces that easily gets out of whack. Since it's the place we love to spend our time in, obviously it gets messy very fast.

This is how the kitchen looks when I've presented to you, this picture below was taken during the holidays.

It looks like the perfect kitchen, but you know, it's a small kitchen, well, a very small kitchen and of course is not perfect. The biggest trouble I have is storage space.
I have to store all of my utensils in only three drawers, and as you can see in the picture below, they don't look good. Drawer No. 2 is my biggest embarrassment! :/

The one in the kitchen island stores most of the silverware we use daily, it's somewhat organized, but I feel like it can be improved. I'm already hating those plastic dividers. Can you see all that wasted space on the left?

UPDATE: The drawer in the kitchen island is done! I love how it looks now, and it stores way more items than with this configuration below. You can check that update right HERE.

However, the space that keeps on bugging me is the cabinet above the fridge, it's always been this big mess and wasted space all at the same time. I need to fix this soon!

ONE MORE UPDATE: This cabinet -above the fridge- was also organized. :)  you can check how it looks now right HERE.

Oh well, I feel better now. It's a little secret I kept. I promise I'm going to work on that. ;)
But on another note, not everything is a big jumble mess. I feel happy and proud with some other projects I've tackled around the kitchen and I know you might like to incorporate those into your own.

1. Install pull out shelves in pantry. This project was done a year ago and I had no trouble at all with it. I can find any goods in there and it has stayed pretty much organized all the time.

2. Install a plate rack inside a cabinet. In order to install the plate rack I had to get rid of the cabinet's door, I have to tell you I haven't missed it a bit. In fact it opened up the space. My kids can grab the plates even better than before when they were stacked on top of each other.

3. I haven't done this, but while editing this picture I proved myself  I need to add an extra shelf to store more of the short glasses in this cabinet.

4. Build display racks not only to have regular plates handy on your countertop where young kids can grab them easily, but you can also place these racks inside cabinets to store the bake-ware (see the above picture).

5. A utensil canister is kind of a necessity in small kitchens like mine. Wooden spoons, whisks, spatulas, they all have to go there.

6. A knife block de-clutters drawers. I got mine at a thrift store for only a couple of bucks.

7. Food canisters on the counter are not only stylish but functional at freeing space from your pantry.

8.  Add a shelf extension to your kitchen island. 

9. Install kitchen sink tip-outs. At first I thought on keeping the dreaded sponge out of sight in this space, but didn't like it there. Instead the two little trays store the can opener, vegetable peeler and brushes, the other tray stores eye glass cleaning supplies.

The sponge got its nice drying rack right there inside the sink. ;)

10. In order to start de-cluttering the drawers I got the measuring cups and spoons out of there. A big wooden ruler was cut into three pieces and painted...

Eye hooks were then attached.

And here I'm installing them on the cabinet door. My daughter was laughing at me when she snap this pic, according to her, I was ready to burn my butt. :D

The On the Cabinet Door Measuring cups and Spoons Storage is done!

Can't wait to tackle those drawers, No. 1 got half empty now. ;)
How about you? What's the biggest messy spot in your kitchen?