Lazy Susans are probably the hardest spot in the kitchen to organize, so I’m going to give you a few organizing tips. Will this be your weekend organizing project?

My number one tip is to designate your lazy Susan for either food or for dishes.

Now I’m going to immediately break that rule. Work with what you have. Sometimes the organizing solution that works best for you isn’t necessarily what would look great in a magazine or what works for someone else.

Here’s the lazy Susan before. I’ll be honest, keeping this organized in a busy home is going to be an uphill battle no matter what we do. Heck, this would even be a challenge in my home. At least there are mounted turntables and they work well. We’ll just be thankful that we have a nice big cabinet with lots of space.

You might immediately think about buying those pie-shaped organizing bins, but you should know that I’ve bought these many times, and they never seem to be the right size for the turntable you have. I don’t think they are worth the relatively high expense and hassle. Also, do we really need more plastic in the world? But the client had a few on hand, so I’ll use whatever is already there in a pinch.

With a bit of creative geometry, these acrylic bins work well for the root vegetables to keep them dark and dry. (I keep mine in wire bins in my dry goods pantry, if you need other ways to store these.)

With that space claimed, the rest of the shelves are going to hold pots, pans and lids. The only way this has any chance at all of working is with labels, labels, labels! Stack round skillets together. Then label.

Stack square skillets together. Then label.

Stack sauce pans together. Then label. And they all play together nicely if you “Turn all handles to the right.” That’s the label to the left there (not blurry in real life).

Lid storage is where dollar store bins can really shine. Work with the geometry of the shelf, and put the rectangular bins right up against the straight edges.

These bins keep the lids from running off in all directions. I like to group them by small, medium, and large. Since I know lid storage is a hot topic, I will point you to one lid organizing and storage product that I do like for straight shelves; it wouldn’t work here. These baskets do just fine.

And this is what we end up with.

To be completely honest and perfectly clear: there are no organizing fairies coming to re-arrange these tricky shelves while you are sleeping. I want every organizing story to have a happy ending, but that’s only going to happen if you show your kids, the nanny, the spouse, and the in-laws where things go. The labels stuck right on the turntable shelves will help remind you where things go. It would honestly be easier to stay organized if you had fewer items here, so if you don’t love it, donate it. Under NO circumstances should you throw small appliances with even smaller parts into the melee here! Ditto for canned goods and packaged foods; store them somewhere else for sure.

Even if your kitchen has a tricky spot like this, it can still be organized.

Get creative in the space you have. Check out the magnetic tea storage I made to utilize the doors in my upper cabinet lazy Susan.

Are you inspired to give organizing your Lazy Susan a whirl?

See all of my January 2021 organizing articles in one place.