3 Simple Organizing Hacks to Keep the Cabinet Under Your Sink Tidy

The cabinet under the kitchen sink is the seedy underbelly of even the cleanest kitchens. How can cleaning products be so hard to keep tidy? There’s a better way, though. A few simple hacks can help that space under your kitchen counter be as neat and tidy as the rest of your kitchen (or neater, as the case may be).

1. MAKE A CURTAIN OF CLEANING SPRAYS.

We’ll start with the Martha Stewart and Rachael Ray-approved method: The curtain rod. If you install a tension rod between the two sides of your cabinet, you can hang bottles with spray heads from the rod, freeing up space below and making it easy to find the cleaner you’re looking for. A tension rod is super easy to install, but you might want to invest in a more heavy-duty option.

Depending on how many bottles you want to hang, and how heavy they are, you likely want to go with a screw-mounted rod. (Tip: Most kitchen cabinets are 25 to 26 inches wide, according to Home Depot.)

2. GET LAZY.

If you don’t want to deal with installing a rod, you can also get a Lazy Susan-style organizer. A plastic turntable with dividers (like this one from The Container Store, priced from $17 to $25) can keep your cleaning products contained and organized, and allow you to locate the item you want with a simple spin, rather than digging through piles of spray bottles. If you don’t have a Lazy Susan, you can even make your own.

3. MAKE USE OF THOSE CABINET DOORS

There’s no reason to let extra space in your cabinet go to waste. You can install several basic additions to the insides of your cabinet doors to put them to good use. To hang your rubber gloves or microfiber clothes, install a small towel bar or Command hooks. They’ll stay above the fray and dry faster. Ditto for your sponges, which you can store in a hanging plastic caddy attached to the other door. These ones from InterDesign start at $8 and come in several different designs.