Organizing

The Magical Shelf Organizer That Found Space Where There Was None

More cabinet space? Yes, please!

by:
September 24, 2021
Photo by Amazon

For someone who lives in a household of just two, my husband and I have a surprisingly large amount of dinnerware. Most of the pieces are leftovers from our first apartment, some are “new home” purchases we decided to invest in, and others are generous gifts from family and friends. Maybe it’s because I work in the food and kitchen space, but dinner plates, ice cream bowls, and more have just piled up to the point where I worry they’ll shatter under their own weight.

Normally, this wouldn’t bother me—I could rearrange the height of my cabinet shelves and organize the dinnerware better, and I could hide the stacks behind closed cabinet doors. If I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist, right? Well, joke’s on me because I have glass fronts on my cabinets and no matter how much rearranging I did, I still wouldn’t have enough shelves to fit everything.

I came across this SONGMICS Cabinet Shelf Organizer and decided to give it a try—it was affordable, perfectly functional, and streamlined enough to blend into my cabinets. Turns out, it was the best decision I could’ve made for my cabinets.

The organizer gave me space where I thought there wasn’t any left. Where I had three shelves in a cabinet, I magically have four. And this fourth shelf means that I can break up large stacks of plates and bowls into more manageable ones that don’t topple over when I shut the door too hard (nor will it crack under its own weight). Now, I have a shelf for everyday plates and bowls, two for nicer pieces when family and friends visit, and one for fancy dinnerware that is almost too nice to eat on (or requires hand washing—a dishwasher is too convenient!)

Because the organizer is expandable, it fits the length of my cabinets without any awkward dead space and I can truly max out on storage. I wound up buying a second set for another cabinet because let’s be real—we can always use more kitchen space. At under $20 though, I wouldn’t be surprised if I grabbed a third for my countertop.

How do you magically find space in your kitchen? Drop some inspo below!

This post contains products independently chosen (and loved) by our editors and writers. Food52 earns an affiliate commission on qualifying purchases of the products we link to.
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Jada Wong

Written by: Jada Wong

Jada is the market editor at Food52 with a decade of experience writing and editing for online publications such as Refinery29, Cosmopolitan, and Insider.

1 Comment

judy September 26, 2021
I, too used to put little shelves in my cupboards, with the push that they would provide moe storage space. In reality, they take up too much space. I pent all that money, and did all that effort , only to throw them away and go back to regular space 6 month later. I now live in a studio apartment with very little kitchen space. The key is to simply only buy what one needs, not bulk buy when something is on sale. still learning that one, but it is working....