Thursday, March 21, 2013

Organizing the Flatware When You Don't Have Kitchen Drawers

flatware chest with butterflies

Most of us store our silverware in a kitchen drawer, using some sort of divider to separate knives, forks and spoons. But what do you do when you don't have a drawer?

1. Use a flatware chest.

There are all sorts of basic flatware chests, in colors like walnut and black, but of course my eye goes to the more unusual ones, like the gold butterfly flatware chest from Mikasa. Mikasa's birds flatware chest is also pretty wonderful.


flatware chest in blue and gold

I'm also totally taken by this blue and gold flatware chest, which fellow organizer John Trosko pointed me to.


2. Use a flatware caddy.

flatware caddy

You've got lots of choices here; the caddy above comes from Pottery Barn. Many were intended for buffets or picnics, but there's no reason they can't be used for more permanent storage. And of course, anything with the right shape could be used, not just something specifically designed to be a flatware caddy.


bamboo flatware caddy

But let's look at a few more caddies, anyway. This one comes from Totally Bamboo.


flatware caddy

And here's the flatware caddy from Towle Silversmiths. It's sold a number of places; this photo comes from Solutions.


3. Use a kitchen rail system.

kitchen rail system with flatware caddy

For example, the Ikea Grundtal rail system I wrote about before has a cutlery caddy as one of its options.


4. Use flatware that comes with its own rack.

20-piece flatware set with rack

There are a few sets like this, but the one that caught my eye is this one, from Cambridge SilverSmiths. This won't work if you already have flatware you like — but for some people, it might be the ideal solution. If you don't like the colored handles, here's another hanging flatware set.

5 comments:

Damian said...

My mother-in-law has used both the flatware rack (the funny hanging thing) and it wasn't very easy to use so she switched to a flatware caddy which worked out better but the only problem I see is that you're not grabbing forks and spoons at "the business end" which seems less than sanitary to me.

Sabrina said...

Love the idea of using a flatware box. Decorating them to make them less formal is a great idea! I will definately share.

Jeri Dansky said...

Damian, thanks for sharing your mother-in-law's experience; that's good to know. Here's another such set that looks like it might be easier to use: the William Sheppee elephant tail flatware with rack.

Regarding the caddy: Assuming the containers are large enough, you could always put the flatware in handles-up — but that wouldn't make as good a photo!

Cynthia Friedlob said...

Love all of these, but especially the birds flatware chest!

JustGail said...

Love the Misaka boxes! I like the look of many of the caddies, but with the counter cruisers (kitties), I'd need to put them in a cabinet. Putting the "business end" of the flatware down doesn't seem like enough.