An organized home is essential. It helps you control your stuff and doesn't allow your things to control you. However, you must be creative in smaller houses or apartments when organizing to maximize your spaces. I suggest that my clients use the backs of wooden entry doors to hang and store small items. It gives the homeowner additional space to store my smaller items so as to support those with smaller homes. In this post, I will share over-the-door (Affiliate Link) organizers for your kitchen space. You can easily add these items to the entryway door to your kitchen, your pantry (Affiliate Link) door, or even doors near your smaller kitchen.
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Spices or cans are in my kitchen pantry or kitchen cabinet.
Attaching items inside the door works nicely for lightweight items like spices (Affiliate Link). Magnet strips can hold loose tea and spices (Affiliate Link) in little stainless steel containers with screwtop lids.
Over The Door Organizer, for spices and herbs containers
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Over the Door Pantry Spice Rack Organizer -6 Tier -Holds up to 54 Spices
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Cork boards and Whiteboards to write notes as reminders.
If you have a flat door in your kitchen, you can easily add cork squares(affiliate) with double-stick tape (usually comes with it) and hang them from the inside of the door to hold important papers. You can also use a whiteboard wallpaper with dry-erase markers(affiliate) to give you a surface to write notes or create a to-do list or grocery list. Add at least ½ inch around the door's perimeter to ensure it closes properly. 
Wrapping Paper Station
Years ago, and I still use it today, my wrapping paper station saved so much space when organizing my home. I created this station by modifying something I saw (Affiliate Link) online to keep everything organized all year long and be able to grab things and birthday cards quickly. The image below is what I created at home to store my wrapping paper. Feel free to visit this Wrapping Paper Station post.
Hats and Bags
Hats (Affiliate Link) and bags in hallway closets for a quick place to put your bags and hats (Affiliate Link).
Larger 3M Command hooks (Affiliate Link) work best for closets. Ensure you purchase sturdy hooks that can hold over 25 lbs to ensure they don't break off. If you are worried about the weight, purchase hooks that screw into wood doors. There are hat-over-the-door organizers on Amazon.
If you have grocery bags that you want to hang over the door, you can buy an over the door organizer that holds just bags.
Over-The-Door Handbag and Purse Organizer for 18 Handbags or Purses. Black.
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Shoe Storage
Shoes (Affiliate Link) are stored in a hallway closet or bedroom closet. There are many over-the-door (Affiliate Link) organizers that can hold a lot more than shoes (Affiliate Link). There are ones that can hold purses and bottles, too. Check out these that I found on Amazon (Affiliate Link) (affiliate).
Shoe Organizer 36 Pair Over the Door White by Whitmor
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Shoe Organizer, Hanging Shoe Organizers with Large Pocket Shoe Holder Hanging Shoe Rack 15 Grey
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Cookbooks and CDs storage
If you need a lot of extra storage, consider buying wider over-the-door (Affiliate Link) organizers to help store these heavier items. Books can be particularly heavy, so getting an actual over-the-door (Affiliate Link) organizer would be better than screwing holes into the door. No one wants to replace a door because it has holes in it. But, if you have magazines or smaller cookbooks that are light and you want to store them, you can store them on a deep shelf over the door organizer. Pick one with a metal frame but with narrow gaps for the books.
Pet Storage Stuff
Pet items may include leashes, food, and snacks. These items can easily be stored in an over-the-door (Affiliate Link) organizer.
Dog Supplies & Accessories Over-the-Door Storage Organizer
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Please note that you can purchase the item through Amazon (Affiliate Link) by clicking on the images above. If you decide to make a purchase, I will earn affiliate fees at no additional cost to you.
I personally, like the over-the-door (Affiliate Link) organizers, hooks that attach to the top and bottom of the door like in the wrapping paper station above (found at The Container Store) instead of making holes in the door. However, if you want to hang items directly on the door, I recommend large 3M Command Strips hooks
(as mentioned above). They peel off nicely and you can find various sizes and styles.
Using over-the-door (Affiliate Link) hanging organizers (Affiliate Link) will organize your home and apartment and free up space on the floor in your rooms. Plus, it will keep your smaller items more organized. I hope I have shown you creative ways to use over-the-door (Affiliate Link) hanging organizers (Affiliate Link).
What do you use for your small space? Do you use over the door hanging organizers (Affiliate Link)? I would love to hear from you.
If you need help planning your space, contact me via my virtual organizing services.
Please note that the links above are affiliate links through Amazon (Affiliate Link). If you click through and decide to make a purchase, I will receive affiliate fees at no additional cost to you.
Want more ideas? Visit our other small spaces organization! We have tons!
Liana George says
Over the door organizers are my absolute favorite! Vertical space is the most underutilized storage space. Thanks for sharing some great ideas on how to maximize the backs of our doors! Love it!
Janet Barclay says
Our closet doors are mostly the folding type, but you've got me thinking about all the other doors and the amount of space I could take advantage of there!
Sarah Soboleski says
Great info as always, Sabrina! Pinned it! I did something similar with my wrapping station by utilizing behind the door storage. Great minds think alike. 😉
Seana Turner says
This is one of those places that often gets overlooked and yet can be the perfect place to pick up some serious storage. One back of the door solutions that I love is for baseball caps. This solution worked so well for me I now tell all my clients about it! https://www.amazon.com/Baseball-Storage-Excellent-Organizer-Sports/dp/B06X42JYFD/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1509976189&sr=8-2-spons&keywords=baseball+cap+storage&psc=1
Linda Samuels says
Especially when you live in small spaces, it's important to maximize ALL available space...under beds, behind doors, in cabinets and closets. I love the variety of suggestions you gave for that back and insides from the door or cabinet space. I've definitely used that space for myself and clients to organize everything from shoes to toys to medical supplies, shopping receipts, cord management, art supplies and to do lists. The over the door hangers can be good, especially if they don't get in the way of actually closing the door. Sometimes that's an issue and sometimes it's not. One of my favorite back of door products are the clear shoe bags. That way you can see what's being stored in the pockets.