This $12 Basic Buy is My Home’s Best Kept Secret
I’ll admit it: Keeping a neat and orderly home isn’t my strong suit. I’m a mini tornado, and stuff regularly threatens to overwhelm me and my space. I need all the help I can get. Sometimes help comes in unlikely shapes and forms— in this case, it’s round, lives inside several of my storage cabinets, and makes life easier.
I’m talking about Lazy Susans. Here are the reasons why I love them:
1. They make things easier to find and reach. If you find yourself rooting through the bowels of your kitchen cabinets looking for that not-often-used-but-loved pumpkin pie spice blend, you might want to spring for a Lazy Susan, which lets you easily rotate hard-to-see items around to the front. Rather than lifting my flour canister up and out of the back of my pantry each time I use it, I just spin the little lady around, scoop some flour out, then return it to the shadowy depths with another flick of my finger. Note: Lazy Susans are particularly fantastic in corner cabinets, whose depths make reaching things even more difficult.
2. Not only does a Lazy Susan keep everything accessible, but it also protects the cabinet bottoms from getting all sticky and gross. I also use one in my bathroom (above) for cleaning supplies— things like soap, rags, and scrub brushes. My house is on the market right now (which is why my cabinets look so clean and empty at the moment), and I’m so very grateful that, along with everything else I had to do, I didn’t have to spend time scrubbing off goo in order to get the cabinets ready for potential buyers. If the Lazy Susan does get icky, it’s easy enough to pull out to clean, or to spruce up with spray paint if it gets really messed up.
3. Lazy Susans are extremely easy to make. I bought mine from IKEA, but you can buy a hardware kit for a couple of bucks on Amazon (here’s a set of four turntables for $12) and turn a round piece of wood, or a regular serving tray, into a smooth, pivoting machine. I even made a terrazzo Lazy Susan a couple of years ago with some cement and crushed glass.
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