Get Cluttered Kitchen Cabinets Organized In A Snap With A Genius Curtain Rod Hack

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Tension curtain rods are items you may want to hang onto if you're moving or decluttering. The thin, small varieties of these spring-loaded rods often hold up curtains in small windows, but they are also powerful tools to save space in places where clutter tends to accumulate easily. To save you frustration in the kitchen, one genius hack is to place tension rods in drawers or cabinets to keep your baking sheets, pot lids, and cutting boards upright and in place. The trick works because the tension rods expand when you twist them, fitting into various spaces, and are used to separate your cabinet into sections for individual items. This is just one of the many ways curtain rods can be repurposed to help you make the most of your kitchen storage.

Before trying the hack, make sure your cabinets or drawers are deep and wide enough to fit a small tension rod. They should be a bit longer than the drawer or cabinet so the tension can work its magic. There are other ways to use vertical space if your kitchen storage space is too shallow for this hack.

If you don't have any to repurpose, you can find small tension rods online, such as this pack of two Goowin tension rods for less than $10, or visit your local hardware or dollar store. Look for rods that have rubber tips so you can worry less about scratching the sides of the drawers when installing or removing them. No hardware is needed, but you can use double-sided tape or tension rod brackets for a more stable fit. 

The tension rod hack works for baking sheets and large cutting boards in a cabinet or smaller cutting boards and pot lids in a drawer. If you're working with a cabinet, expand a rod and wedge it vertically, between the top ("ceiling") and bottom ("floor") of the cabinet, and push it toward the back. Do the same thing with another rod but place it toward the front. Continue to add sets of rods placed in the same way as many times as needed depending on how wide your cabinet is. The amount of space you will leave between each set depends on how many items you're organizing.

In a kitchen drawer, tension rods fit best when placed horizontally, either between the back of the drawer and the front or between the right and left sides. To organize smaller items like lids, inserting a tension rod between the right and left sides near the front of the drawer works wonders. The tension rod hack is customizable, so you can explore when to choose thick vs. thin tension rods depending on the size and dimensions of your drawer or cabinet. Thicker tension rods tend to be sturdier and can be a better choice for corralling kitchenware that has more weight to it.