Goodbye Drawer Clutter: The Smarter, More Affordable Way To Store Container Lids

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Whether it's a cabinet or drawer, the dedicated storage spot for food containers always seems to devolve into a mess. No matter how neatly you stack food storage containers, it's often the lids that make this section of your kitchen feel unruly. They somehow end up sliding around, tipping over, or disappearing into the back of the cabinet. Fortunately, there's a surprisingly simple fix that you might find hiding in your forgotten home storage or at the thrift store: an old CD rack.

For this hack, you want to use a CD rack that's open on two sides. Enclosed options will be too small to fit larger container lids. These types of racks are designed to keep discs upright and easy to rifle through, which is exactly what makes them ideal to organize food container lids. It's similar to this storage hack that uses bookends to keep messy container lids upright. It helps you make use of vertical space without creating a haphazard stack, and the cupboard stays much neater since it keeps lids contained. A CD rack is perfect for his hack since it has narrow, evenly spaced vertical slots. Each lid gets its own niche, making it simple to pull one out without disturbing the others.

CDs aren't as popular nowadays, so these racks aren't as widely available. To find one, you can check with family members or browse your local thrift store. Friends, parents, or grandparents might have a suitable rack tucked away in their attic or basement storage. If it comes with discs that no one uses anymore, you can repurpose them for a cool DIY birdbath made of CDs, a fun and distinctly nostalgic craft idea. But the rack is what you want for container lid storage. If you can't source one secondhand, the Philbinden Clear Acrylic CD Holder will fit most container lids. Considering purpose-made kitchen container lid organizers cost around $20, even if you have to buy a new CD holder, it's often the cheaper option.

If your container cabinet has shelving, consider placing the CD rack on the top shelf for lids and stacking containers on the bottom shelf to save space. You can also create levels using raised shelf organizers. The Cidaziya Expandable Metal Storage Shelf is an example of a height- and width-adjustable shelf riser that can help you maximize space. While organizing your lids into the rack, you might as well carry out a lid audit and make sure each one matches with a container. For any that don't have a match, you can repurpose plastic container lids for DIYs rather than tossing them.