An email from 'aha', asks:" We have a kitchen that is "space challenged" there is no room on counters for things like bottle trees, and drawer space is tight... any brilliant ideas on bottle/baby utensils/baby food storage?"
(Note: Include a pic of your problem and your question gets posted first. Email questions and pics with QUESTIONS in subject line to: nursery(at)apartmenttherapy(dot)com)
Well, we are not sure how brilliant our ideas are, so we are hoping some of our more brilliant readers will jump in here. We are fans of the Splash, pictured above, as a way of organizing baby bottles and accessories, but if you don't have any counter space at all, that isn't going to work. Ditto the baby food jar organizers out there, such as the Sassy baby food organizer and the Gerber baby feeding center, and of course we aren't thrilled about 'one use only' solutions.
We recently saw a classic 3-tier wire hanging fruit basket in a friend's kitchen, which was being used to store bottles and feeding supplies, and it was not bad looking. Does your kitchen have a door? If so, an over door rack might help organize baby stuff.
AT readers, what do you think? Surely you all must have wrestled with this at some point - how did you organize your bottles, baby food, and other kitchen-related baby stuff?
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
I had the same problem, and ended up sacrificing the contents of an existing kitchen drawer just to hold bottles. I took everything out of a drawer and put it in a plastic container stored in my closet (as most items were used far less frequently than the bottles!) and kept one drawer dedicated to baby items like bottles and bibs. For a period of your life, it will be all about the bottles- so since they will be a high-traffic item keep them in a high-priority place!
We opened each cupboard, photographed it, and then went to the container store and found ways to use 100% of the space that was open. So in the cupboard beside my stove was canned goods, but they only used up the bottom 2/3 of space on the shelf, and there was air above them. We found cupboard organizers that let us stack and store food and dishes all the way to the top of each shelf and when we were done, we had one empty cupboard, 2 shelves, in our kitchen, which i would not have thought possible before!
We also used wall racks, put shelves up over the doors for stuff we don't use every day to get it out of cupboards, edited our silverware drawer and eliminated our junk drawer.
Thing I love best is my babyfood system - it sounds dumb, but when all your baby tupperware is one brand, meant to lock together, it saves a *lot* of space and hassle. I would have loved that Splash bottle/nipple holder.
What about mounting a cone thread spool holder to the side of a cabinet or wall? Something like this:
http://www.shop.com/op/~june_tailor_Mid_Size_Cone_Rack-prod-41295981-54809643?sourceid=3
You might have to modify it to be able to hang it from the wall instead of using it on a counter surface, but that's pretty easy to do. I hung one up (to use for thread) but stapled a pretty ribbon to the back to make a hanger and just hung it on a nail like that.
Chloë, I am fascinated by all your extra space. We don't have the container store in Spain but I am going to look long and hard inside my kitchen cabinets and next time I go to IKEA seek solutions!
I use a toothbrush holder for spoon storage. Let's see... a hook above the sink to hang plastic bibs (rinse and hang dry) and wall-mounted, wooden IKEA spice racks for baby food jars. We also found that having 6 bottles, bowls, spoons, etc. lying around was unnecessary for us, so we tend to use only one of each (washing between uses) and store the rest away in a box. I really like the smallest round Rubbermaid StainShield bowl w/lid as in-the-fridge or in-the-backpack baby food storage (infinitely reusable and no worries about lids popping off in the bag).
I used a metal 6 pack holder for my sons bottles. I got mine at Target- I saw a similiar one at Pottery Barn. They market them for picnic use,it looks like vintage. It held 6 bottles on the counter with their tops. (it had an attached bottle opener that I took off)When he moved to sippy cups, it fit those too. I just have it to another mother and she loves it too....