If you're tired of adding to the tower of precariously balanced take-out containers that's about to spill into your refrigerator's cheese drawer, you've come to the right place. The refrigerator experts at Garner Appliance and Mattress have summarized our best refrigerator storage solutions and refrigerator organization tips to help you create order among your refrigerated chaos. Follow our five steps to refrigerator organization, and you'll never again feel like you're playing a game of Jenga® each time you remove something from the refrigerator.
1. Start with a Deep Clean
Clean all of the surfaces in your refrigerator before you start organizing everything on the shelves and inside the drawers. You may need to remove drawers and shelves and soak them in the sink if you discover sticky spills or unsightly stains. To make the process easier next time, consider lining your shelves and drawers with plastic wrap or washable shelf liners.
2. Let Go of Sauces, Dressings, and Condiments You Don't Like
You don't have to sacrifice valuable space within your refrigerator just because you tried a new product and didn't like it. Instead of tossing it in the trash, offer it to friends, neighbors, or family members. You may discover that your neighbors love that zesty dressing that tastes like soap to you, so give them your bottle and free up some much-needed space in your refrigerator.
Pro Tip:
Neighborhood Buy Nothing groups are the perfect place to share groceries and other items that don't please your palate, so search to find the Buy Nothing group near you.
3. Rearrange and Reconfigure Shelves and Drawers
Take stock of your refrigerator's internal layout and adjust shelves or rearrange drawers to better suit your lifestyle. Many newer refrigerators feature customizable storage systems so you can create the ideal configuration for your family. If your refrigerator won't let you move drawers, consider moving the drawer's contents instead. If your overstuffed cheese drawer doesn't hold your delicious assortment of cheeses, consider moving your cheese to the bigger vegetable drawer and storing your vegetables in the cheese drawer*.
*Note:
You may need to adjust the drawer's humidity or temperature controls accordingly.
4. Incorporate a Lazy Susan
We all tend to forget about the food stored in the back of the refrigerator because no one wants to move jars and containers around to access the leftovers that got relegated to the back. If you frequently throw out food that grew fur because no one could see it hiding on the shelf behind the milk, consider adding a lazy Susan to that shelf. To make sure you get the right size, measure your shelf and the items you plan to place on a lazy Susan; buying a lazy Susan that's too small for your needs will just add clutter without solving any problems. Once you find an appropriately sized lazy Susan, you'll be able to retrieve items from the front and back of your refrigerator with a gentle spin.
5. Leave space for Leftovers
When you started the organization process, your refrigerator might have looked like it was completely full, but in reality, moldy food and unwanted/expired condiments consumed quite a bit of that space. Now that you've whittled down your refrigerator's contents, so it only holds edible food that you actually want to eat, resist the urge to fill every square inch of space. Instead, maximize that free space so you can add items like a pan of leftover lasagna or a pot of chicken soup. Once you get used to leaving available space in your refrigerator, you'll find that it's easier to put away leftovers and easier to get them out for reheating.
We hope these top five refrigerator organization tips will help you create an organization system that works for your family. If you want to check out the customizable storage solutions in some of our best-selling refrigerators, stop into our Garner Appliance and Mattress North Raleigh showroom today!