LAZY SUSAN | TIPS & TRICKS

Today, I share all about how to get organized with a lazy susan including 8 ways you probably haven’t heard of!

Welcome to my series about how to know when to buy organizing products and what kinds to buy (or not to buy). This is the intro to the series and I am also featuring the lazy Susan as the first organizing product to cover … one of my favorites!

I repeat multiple times in my book, to be patient and wait before purchasing organizing products until you get to the 6th of 7 steps to organizing any space. You can actually grab my free mini 7-step guide here!

Now, go ahead and set aside the organizing products you already do have and keep reading.

With the plethora of choices for containers that are out there, it can be hard to know which ones will work best for your spaces. And, I know. It’s tempting to buy cute containers, especially when you find super affordable ones. Or, when you start organizing, you begin to feel the relief of purging items you don’t need that, in your enthusiasm, you may run to the store to purchase products, so you can make your spaces look Pinterest-perfect or Instagram-worthy. Even I struggle to stop myself from purchasing every organizing product deal in sight. A lot of the time, you don’t need them! And, also, a lot of the time, they are quite crucial for setting up the most functional organized systems for your particular spaces.

Here is the most important thing to grasp about this series: you must make sure you know you need these organizing products. Unless those picture-perfect pantries have containers that work perfectly for your diet and lifestyle, you will end up wasting your money. And purchasing a bunch of inexpensive bins can end up being a waste if you just need one high-quality organizing solution … or vice versa. When you get to the 6^th step of organizing, you will know whether or not these products will be beneficial to maximizing the setups of your organized systems!

And let’s jump right into today’s featured organizing product which is the lazy Susan!

ORIGINAL FUNCTION

The purpose of this organizing product is to make a variety of items accessible with a simple turn. Instead of rifling through items and moving everything around to find a specific item, this organizing product makes a variety of items easily accessible from the back and corner of a cabinet or surface.

WHAT NOT TO DO

This organizing product is not meant to hold multiples of the exact same item. Those Instagram or Pinterest photos showing the exact same products on this organizing product are meant to be staged so that they inspire you to get organized. In reality, you will not need to store the exact same items on this organizing product. A lazy Susan can be expensive, so you don’t want to spend money when all you have to do is store multiples of the same item one behind the other and quickly slide them forward as they are used up.

BEST WAYS TO USE

One of the best ways to maximize the use of this organizing product is to use it in a corner especially within a pantry. This lazy Susan cabinet is the perfect example of making things easily accessible from the corner of a cabinet.

This organizing product is also perfect for spices and oils and different types of vinegar because of the variety factor I mentioned which is the purpose of this organizing product. And to maximize space in a house like this with no pantry and a small kitchen, you can use the middle of this organizing product to store taller items because you can see them. Or, you can store backup items as the items on the edge of this organizing product are used up. After you take items off of the lazy Susan, don’t forget to replace them with the labels facing out.

UNCONVENTIONAL USES

You can install a lazy Susan upside down underneath a cabinet or shelf and apply hooks around the edges of a plastic lazy Susan or screw cup hooks into a wooden lazy Susan. You can store a plethora of items like necklaces from a shelf in your closet or measuring spoons from underneath a kitchen cabinet or any other variety of items you can think of. You can also add a whole other layer to a lazy Susan with a wide dowel in the center or smaller dowels around the edge while you add a plate or pan or wood disc to the top. And here is a bonus smart phone filming hack for those who want to make their mobile phone videos extra fun (you can also add this to your work bag [click here if you missed my purse organization post]). These stools from Ikea can be taken apart and placed in your bag (you will need a screwdriver) along with a lazy Susan allowing you to have a 360-degree recording option!

HOW TO DECIDE IF YOU NEED A LAZY SUSAN

You can either look at what variety of items you may need a lazy Susan for (like spices). Or, you can look at your spaces and see what corners may be difficult to reach items from (like the corner of an upper cabinet). Group those items together and decide where it makes the most sense to store those items (like in the kitchen cabinet nearest to the stove). This cabinet is about 10 inches deep, so a 10-inch lazy Susan works perfectly here. For larger items, like cleaning products underneath the kitchen sink, a larger lazy Susan makes sense as long as the items stored on it do not interfere with the pipes and other mechanisms as it is turned.

HOW TO SAVE MONEY

In my book, I tell you to, first, put your items away without organizing products (zero money spent!) Then, if you feel like your items aren’t as easily accessible as you would like, you can go ahead and purchase organizing supplies to suit your spaces. Alejandra Costello created the double cake pan and marbles DIY lazy Susan and you can use that option to make a $3 lazy Susan (click here for the link to her video). The Dollar Tree had lazy Susans at one point and some were hit or miss for people so there were very likely some batches that were not manufactured the best. If they come back to the Dollar Tree, they would be great to try. If they don’t function well, you can always exchange them. I happened to get some hits which I was very happy about. There are several DIY wood lazy Susan tutorials that you can find from woodworking channels on YouTube. From retailers, prices for a lazy Susan are similar across the board for stores like The Container Store, Walmart, and Target and some are priced a little less on Amazon. Here are some less than $10 options to consider:

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Lazy Susan (found here):

Lazy Susan (found here):

Lazy Susan (found here):

Lazy Susan (found here):

Lazy Susan (found here):

Lazy Susan (found here):

MORE TO COME

Be sure to bookmark my website and subscribe to my YouTube channel by clicking here. Then, click the red subscribe button and the notification bell right next to it so that you don’t miss the upcoming videos in my series on how to use organizers and containers properly and even in ways that are unconventional so that you can make the best use of them. You will save money and make your spaces function best for you!

Don’t forget to grab your FREE organizing resources here so that you can know if a lazy Susan or two or three will be good solutions for your spaces. I have a lot more organizing products coming up, so be sure to subscribe and click the notification bell, so you can know the moment my next video is up and never miss another organizing video.

Happy Organizing!