Cabinet Door Utensil Caddy

I swear it is the simple things in life, isn’t it?

One of my favorite things you can’t even see in our “let’s make this kitchen less soul shriveling” makeover is the cabinet door utensil caddy that holds our cooking utensils.

I don’t know why we’ve never incorporated something like this into any of our other kitchens because I can think of at least three where it would have worked.

I may be slow to join the party, but at least I showed up.

That’s a metaphorical party, by the way. My inner introvert is busy for the next million years if there’s an actual party.

During our kitchen mini makeover, I asked Handy Husband to build me two utensil caddies that would attach to the inside of the cabinet doors on the base cabinet closest to the stove.

I wanted this cabinet door utensil caddy because our kitchen desperately needs more storage. There are only four drawers and they aren’t deep drawers. Plus, these drawers are located at the farthest point away from the stove. And I’m a lazy cook.

Handy Husband used some scrap wood and his trusty KregJig to build these utensil caddies, but I don’t think you need to drill pocket holes to make one of these. Handy Husband doesn’t think you need a KregJig to build a cabinet door utensil caddy either.

In fact, when I asked him for a tutorial he told me he would build these utensil caddies completely different now. That happens a lot when we come up with these projects on the fly. Our first prototype works, but it gives us an idea of how it could be done better or more simply if we were ever to do it again.

So…this post is super helpful.

I CAN tell you the dimensions of our utensil caddy because it works pretty well for our particular assortment of cooking utensils.

It is approximately 8 inches wide, 7 inches tall and 2 1/4 inches deep. The utensil caddy is divided into two compartments to help keep the utensils separated.

You could also finish this project off more professionally than I did by filling in the screw holes with wood putty.

I acknowledge that I went 93% on this project’s execution, but I made up for it by loving the outcome 400%.

I’m sure my grasp of percentages is sound, so don’t you worry that I’m the one that helps our kids with their math homework.

The biggest consideration if this will work in your kitchen is the clearance on the inside of your cabinet. The shelves on this particular base cabinet are inset slightly, so I have the extra 2.5 inches of clearance that our utensil caddy needs. This would not work on our upper cabinets where the shelves are almost flush to the cabinet door.

The second bit of consideration is to decide where on the cabinet door to attach the utensil caddy. One of our caddies is hung lower than the other to accommodate the extra long utensils I wanted to store there.

It should be noted that our utensil caddy is stained, not painted. I wasn’t worried too much about a food safe finish since actual food isn’t touching the utensil caddy. If you are, here’s some information on food safe finishes. I’m in the 93% club with this project, so you should probably not be like me and do your own research on this topic.

Our cabinet door utensil caddy has freed up so much space in our kitchen drawers. It has made cooking dinner much more efficient. Not tastier, but more efficient.

Perhaps, most importantly, I can keep to my neurotic need to have a clear kitchen counter.

Although, maybe if I had prettier utensils I wouldn’t mind displaying them on the kitchen counter, but I’ll have to mull that over another day.

Are you happy you know what’s going on behind these closed doors now? I figured as much.

Maybe I’ll invite you over for dinner sometime…as long as we don’t call it a party.

P.S. If you don’t want to build your own utensil caddy, you could attach a sturdy, narrow basket to your cabinet door instead. Maybe even a wood office supply organizer?

Something like this from Pottery Barn might work if you ignore the rail part:

This Bamboo Cooking Spatula Holder from Amazon is only $7.50 and it could probably be attached inside a cabinet door with a small nail or Command Strips.

*affiliate links in this post*

Thanks for hanging out with  me today! I hope an idea here will spark your imagination. Here are some other posts you might enjoy.

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