DIY Utensil Holder

Oh hi there, ATT readers.  I’m both excited and (very very) nervy to be here today.  You folks are an intimidating crowd!

I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there, to tell you all about… who I am!

I’m Mekenzie, with an E.  But that doesn’t matter, because everyone calls me Kenz.  Some of my titles in life include: Pilot, Realtor, Violinist & Scuba Diver.  I’m a wife to a software engineer (who pushed me into blogging) and a new mom to a bald 6 month old Evelyn Faye.  We’ve got 2 dogs and a hedgehog.  Our home is a place absent of boredom.  I narrate the DIY and design blog Interiors By Kenz and have a great time doing it!

My mantra is “Extreme humiliation should not keep us from creating beautiful things.”  It’s both feet in, 100% of the time.

Onto today’s assignment: Kitchen Organization.

A common obstacle in the kitchen is where to keep your big utensils.  If you’re like me, you cram as many as physically possible (and 2 more after that) into one drawer.  There’s no rhyme or reason to it.  They poke all different directions.  It’s a dirty underground kitchen scene that goes undiscussed.  It’s also very much like the beginning of an infomercial.

After years of my utensil drawer being a “Monica closet,” (Any fellow Friends watchers our there?)  I give you this fabulously inexpensive and simple solution:

For this DIY Utensil Holder, you will need a 4″ PVC pipe, 3 PVC pipe caps, and a piece of scrap wood.

When purchasing the PVC pipe, flag down a Home Depot employee, because they will cut it for you.  Mine are cut 8″ long.

The fun part of this project is designing and customizing the canisters.  I chose to color block them, but the possibilities are endless.  You could stencil, hand paint, sharpie, cover in fabric, wrap in twine or yarn… the list goes on.

These are the colors I used on this project.  (Not pictured, RustOleum Gold)

To spray paint it the way I did, I started at the top and worked down.  After the first color was dry, I would tape and spray the next color, and so on.  On the “complicated scale” from 1 to 10, level 10 being “conscious uncoupled,” this was easily a 1.

I knew these utensil canisters had the potential of being tipped over like a cow on graduation night in Alabama.  So my plan was to stabilize the pipes to a board to keep them upright.  This is my favorite construction adhesive.  I use it on everything.  I put a glob right in the middle, then stuck it to my piece of scrap wood.  (The stain on that is Minwax Early American, for those wondering.)

I stuffed some scrap pieces of fleece in the pipes to give the utensils something to stick into so they would have form.  But if you’re not crazy like me, you can definitely skip doing that!

And just like that, we’ve got a utensil storage solution!

I would love if you popped over to the party at Interiors By Kenz sometime and said hello!  Here’s a Costco size sample of what you’ll find when you’re visiting in my town.

How to turn any chair into a rocking chair

The vintage trailer that I made over

How to paint faux molding