Kitchen appliances are large and in charge! Here are 15 kitchen appliance storage ideas from my past kitchens to the newest version to give you some ideas for how to organize your kitchen appliances.
Storing Kitchen Appliances
I think most people have a love-hate with their kitchen appliances. Yes, they are fantastic for saving time and making food convenient (slow cooker! rice cooker!). I would find it really hard to make breadcrumbs without a food processor = necessary.
But they are also mostly on the large size, so it isn’t the easiest to figure out storage solutions. When you use something daily, it’s easy to justify counter space so you can easily access it, but you might not want to lay your eyes on something you only use a few times a month on a daily basis.
My past kitchens have ranged from tiny (my first apartment, which had no kitchen storage space), small-to-mid-sized (middle houses, where I used overflow space), and now pretty darn large (see the current kitchen tour here)!
I’ve also had a range of appliances over the years. Since they do take up a lot of space, I tend to stick to the very basics that we use most often. (I do sometimes wish I still had my juicer and InstantPot but both of those were given away during previous moves.)
I have used countertops, cabinets, other rooms (the dining room), the basement, and a corner of my garage for appliance storage in the past.
Currently, here’s what we have:
- On my countertops: blender, toaster oven, coffee maker and tea kettle (behind closed doors)
- In kitchen cabinets: slow cooker, rice cooker, immersion blender, food processor, stand mixer, microwave
I love having a high-quality blender that matches the kitchen : )
Here is a list of ideas of ideas for storing kitchen appliances to balance keeping your kitchen functional while keeping your counters clutter-free.
15 Kitchen Appliance Storage Ideas
These ideas go from most expensive and custom to most DIY and creative : )
1. Butler’s Pantry
The luckiest of the lucky have a neat little butler’s pantry off of the kitchen where small appliances can be out but also out of sight! It’s the best win-win. This was actually on my wish list for our kitchen renovation, but alas we did not have the space for a true butler’s pantry. That’s ok though, because most of us can only dream of an appliance room!
2. Appliance Garage
But what we did end up with is an appliance garage! Appliances are on the countertop for easy access when the doors are open and are beautifully tucked inside when the doors are closed. We had originally imagined putting our blender and toaster oven in there and having the coffee maker out in the open, but we realized a day after moving in it made so much more sense to have the coffee bar inside of the cabinets and to have the toaster and blender out. Under the garage is a drawer for storing your coffee along with other bar tools.
You can see our toaster oven lives next door, out on the counters. We use this daily!
3. Built In
When you can’t put it behind closed doors, build it in! Our microwave is hidden in the island in an area that isn’t visible unless you’re in that section of the kitchen. I love having it in easy reach because I’m too short to pull hot things out of a microwave that is above the range!
4. Kitchen Cabinets
Most people have their small appliances in the kitchen cabinets. The bulk of ours are stored in the far end of our cabinet row in easy pull-out drawers. Even this custom design is a bit height-challenged though!
Food processor, waffle maker, crockpot, rice cooker.
I had planned to put the stand mixer in the pantry, but I realized we had nothing in this under-the-sink cabinet after we moved it and it fit the height perfectly. So that’s where it lives! I’ve seen some cool pop-up attachments for mixers on pinterest, but we don’t use ours enough to warrant anything that fancy.
5. Corner Cabinets with Lazy Susan
Prior to our renovation, we had appliances (and cookware) in the corner cabinet with a lazy susan. The bonus here is that it moves, and these cabinets are often larger to accommodate the bigger or wider appliances.
6. Open Shelves
While we don’t have any appliances on our shelves, if you have wall space and some prettier appliances, like a vintage looking toaster, this would be a great way to display them and keep them within arm’s reach!
7. Utility Shelves
I’ve seen a lot of kitchens with utility shelves as a storage solution for the appliances. Or if you had the wall space for a furniture piece like a cabinet with shelves, that would be great to keep appliances out of sight as well. Use my tip for DIY burlap curtains if yours is glass-front!
8. Deep Drawers
Of course deep drawers also work well for storing small appliances like a coffee grinder or stick blender. We have our smaller things in the top pull-out drawer in the cabinet I mentioned above, along with Cuisinart parts and baking pans.
9. In The Pantry
The lucky ones who have a walk-in pantry probably store some appliances in there. I’ve seen some beautiful photos of pantries with custom shelving to fit the unique shapes of different appliances. We keep a few party accessories on the top shelf, but as you’ve seen above, most of our appliances are in the kitchen now that it’s bigger.
10. A Rolling Cart
If you have the space for a rolling cart to tuck away, you can roll it out when it’s baking time! Wheels are great for appliances that are super heavy – like the Kitchen Aid! Here is one that is inexpensive and modern looking.
11. Pegboard Storage
If you have a small kitchen appliance that could hang, a pegboard or those kitchen wall hooks from IKEA are a great way to get it off the counters. Think cheese graters, hand beaters, and the like. The kitchen I grew up in was filled with antique cooking gadgets that my mom actually used!
See it in the background of this 90s Halloween pic of me as a punk rocker!!
12. Hanging Racks
This suggestion is slightly skewed toward pots and pans, but I had a hanging rack at one of my previous houses and it was great! I loved it. Not only were the pots and pans easy to reach, but they were easy to air dry too.
13. A Buffet
In our pre-renovation home, we used this long buffet in the living room for appliances. It was easy to get them in and out with the big, wide doors, and it was just steps from the kitchen. The dining room is a great place for overflow appliance storage.
14. Shelves in the basement
This is a corner of my basement at my previous house where I had wooden shelves that served as a pantry. While it wasn’t ideal to go down stairs for appliances, these were all ones I didn’t use on a daily basis. And I had them in easy-to-carry wire containers so I could bring them up without pieces falling off.
15. The Neighbor’s House
I’m not kidding! If you have something you might only use a few times a year, borrow it instead! Two neighbors could easily share a waffle maker : ) I gave my neighbors my InstantPot with the condition that I might ask to borrow it once a year (I haven’t asked for it yet though!).
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