The Extra Kitchen Storage Space You've Been Ignoring All Along

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If your kitchen is overflowing with items, you're not alone. The kitchen is a common area where clutter builds up, especially in small homes, which can make cooking more stressful. Luckily, you can use some clever kitchen organization hacks to give yourself more counter space, making everything look nicer and giving you more prep area for when you're cooking. One such hack is to stack your appliances for extra storage space.

If you have two appliances of similar sizes, such as a microwave and toaster oven, you can stack the smaller one on top of the larger one. This means that while they're taking up less counter space, you also don't have to constantly move them back and forth like you would if you stored one under the sink while not using it. They'll both be readily available, yet only take up half as much countertop space. Best of all, you can easily plug them both into the same power strip.

Simply be sure to test the surface of the appliance that will be on the bottom before stacking them to make sure the weight will hold. After all, you wouldn't want your toaster oven breaking through the top of your microwave while you're heating up a microwave meal. If you're worried it won't hold something the size of a toaster oven, consider stacking a smaller appliance like the regular toaster.

If you don't want to stack your appliances or fear they won't hold all that weight, no worries. You can also use the surface to hold other items, especially with the help of a metal shelf. While you might not want to stack items directly on top of a microwave or toaster oven so that they don't get exposed to the heat, placing a metal shelf on top of the appliance can make that space usable without causing a fire hazard. For instance, a shelf like this metal one from Amazon can prop items up away from the appliance itself and make a perfect little shelf to store seasonings, meaning you can easily season food directly out of the microwave or oven.

If you're a coffee lover, you could even use the top of an appliance to make a little coffee bar. Simply keep your coffee maker near another appliance with a flat surface, and you can keep syrups (consider getting them from the best coffee syrup brand) and other fun coffee add-ins on the shelf atop the other appliance. Pair this with some hacks for holding coffee pods, and you'll have a functional and cute coffee bar that takes up very little counter space.