Some people can live together in just 200 square feet of space. And they can do it beautifully, too. Just look at this Airstream trailer, which is home to Natasha Lawyer and Brett Bashaw. Nicknamed the Tin Can Homestead, it’s a marvel of smart, stylish storage. Here are seven smart storage ideas you should steal from their functional-yet-small kitchen and implement in your own tiny space.

I’ve lived in some small New York City apartments, but Jordan and Brittany Griggs have me beat with their 276-square-foot camper. To make their tiny home comfortable, they renovated it completely to create separate areas for work and play and just enough storage for the surprisingly few things they really need. The kitchen boasts a sharp interplay of open and closed storage to make it totally functional — and cute!

Mason jars are essential for canners. They’re also a favorite storage container for everything from dry goods to soups to cute little salads you put in your purse. But they do have a couple flaws when you’re working in multiples: They don’t really stack (unless you’re really, really careful and basically never touch or walk by them!), they’re heavy to move around, and they’re fairly bulky compared to, say, a plastic storage container.

Even the most organized among us — and even those of us who may be lucky enough to have a big kitchen — can always use a little more storage space. To that end, we say one can never have too many shelves. They’re an easy fix and, depending on what materials you use and how you style them, they can serve just as well as a decorative element as they do for storage. Where to put them?

When it comes to architecture and decorating, nothing beats the design porn that is Houzz! While Pinterest may find you the hack-iest hacks, the solutions you’ll find on Houzz are just breathtaking. Which explains why their most-saved pantry by users in the United States is a totally drool-worthy professional built-in instead of a DIY solution. This pantry, designed by Smallbone of Devizes, a London-based custom cabinetry company, is just stunning.

Breaking news! You may have more space in your pantry than you realize, and here’s why: Pantry doors are actually prime real estate for bonus storage. You can hang stuff or add shallow shelves on the inside of your pantry without having to worry about them hitting the shelves inside. Whether you have a giant walk-in pantry, a little reach-in one, or more of a cabinet situation, these ideas will work for you.

Whether you live in a small apartment, an older (pre-island fetish) home, or just an average house, you probably wish your kitchen was a little bit bigger. Or at least wish it looked bigger, right? We can’t help you increase the square footage, but we can help with the second part of that. Here are five things that’ll make your kitchen seem bigger than it really is. Take the cafe curtain off the window, add under-cabinet lighting, and paint those oak cabinets glossy white!

Friendsgiving is a must-have event if you can’t get home to your family for the holidays — or straight-up want a bonus excuse to hang out with your friends and eat more turkey! But because it’s usually potluck-style, and your friends probably have varying levels of cooking expertise, budget, and timeliness, the event can be sort of a mess without some organization.

Reminder: Daylight Saving Time will officially end while you’re sleeping (at 2 AM on Sunday morning). While it’s a bummer that it will be getting darker earlier, setting the clocks back this weekend also means that most of us will get one free hour to use however we see fit. We suggest penciling in a few of these five very satisfying little tasks — and then getting a full night’s sleep. Do these technically need to be clean? Maybe not. Do they look amazing when they are?

At first glance, silicone baking mats don’t seem all that hard to store, right? They’re practically weightless, so you should be able to store them anywhere. The problem is that they’re floppy and won’t stand up on their own. So what do you do? Roll them up! But now the problem is that they don’t want to stay rolled, and that is a dilemma. Rubber bands don’t slide on easily, and twist-ties are awkward.

As we come up into entertaining season, a lot of us are expecting houseguests. Whether they’re spending the night or just stopping by for dinner, there are certain things you can do to make your visitors feel extra welcome in your home. Here are a few. While you certainly aren’t expected to buy all of your guests’ favorite foods, it’s nice to stock up on a few things you know they like. Easy items like yogurt for breakfast or a couple of snacks are best.

Worksgiving is a great way to hang out with your colleagues and share some gossip, but like any office gathering, you can seriously piss off your building’s custodians if you’re not courteous. While some extra mess is inevitable, there are a few steps you can take during cleanup that will make it easier on them. Here’s how. Your office custodian is not your mom — their job is to maintain the office, not clean up after you.

Your kitchen is the workhorse of the home, and the items you store in it — serving pieces, utensils, and all that cookware — are among the toughest items in the whole place because they have to stand up to daily use. And even though these items are usually pretty durable, if you store them incorrectly, you could potentially damage them (or, at the very least, waste space you could be using for something else). Here are five kitchen items you may be storing the wrong way.

I stumbled across this pretty pastel baker’s kitchen and couldn’t stop admiring all the smart storage tricks here! Blogger Torie Jayne started her career in the fashion industry, working in New York and then London. She’s now an author, too, as well as a working crafter and photographer. Impressive, right?

Sometimes you read about these hacks on the internet and can't possibly imagine they'll work. This one did!

I’m all about storing things based on how I use them. For example, I keep all of my coffee and tea things together, my cooking oils and vinegars on the same shelf, and my baking items all grouped together. I have always been pretty impressed with myself — and then I found one simple hack that made me feel a little silly. It was so simple and yet, I had never thought of it or seen it before. Here’s a hint: It involves temporary hooks and canisters.

Look, I love The Container Store. I could spend hours wandering the aisles thinking about which bins would be just the right size for my many disorganized zones. But sometimes their idea of how organized I could possibly be is so far off from my reality that I have to chuckle. Take this pantry, for instance: It’s modeling an elfa pantry kit that comes with all the shelves, brackets, and accessories you need to replicate this pantry in your home.

In my own life, and for the purposes of these cleaning columns, I aspire to a zero-clutter kitchen. In the evenings, I dutifully re-home my kids’ artwork and sort the mail and put away the dry dishes to get the countertops clean. I’m pretty ruthless with my gadget drawers and pantry. And for someone who loves to entertain, I feel like I have a fairly minimal glassware collection.

Most of us have a weeknight dishwashing routine that’s pretty manageable: Rinse (or not) some plates and silverware, throw them into the dishwasher, and wash the handful of pots, pans, and other utensils you used for food prep. If you’re lucky, you have a partner to help dry the dishes and put them away to complete the task.

This is the kitchen of the late Flo Braker, a well-known cookbook author and baking professional, who some call the “patron saint of all pastry makers.” Fine Cooking magazine photographed her kitchen, a sprawling space with all sorts of clever design details that would make any baker envious: yards of granite countertop to roll out dough, racks of rolling pins for every conceivable use, perfectly organized drawers of pastry tips and biscuit cutters.

As we have documented pretty thoroughly on this site, baking soda and vinegar are each super-handy around the house. Baking soda is a natural deodorizer and a fine abrasive — that’s good for odor absorption and scrubbing. Vinegar’s acid cuts through grease and shines things up, making it a winner for cleaning hard surfaces like countertops and windows. So naturally the next thought is: If they work so well separately, shouldn’t they work even better together?

Even if you don’t believe in miracles, you probably believe in tiny miracles. They’re the little things that, against all odds, happen and make a huge difference in our lives. A tiny miracle can be a recipe that gets dinner on the table during the most hectic weekday, the little hack that finally organizes your fridge, a newfound motto that helps you stay on top of kitchen messes, or anything else that seems like a gift from above.

When faced with grossness in the kitchen (read: the whole house has the flu, or you found a cockroach infestation under the sink, or the dog trashed the room after eating who-knows-what), it’s tempting to bring out all of the big guns and throw every cleaning product you’ve got at the problem. But don’t! First of all, most cleaning products are plenty effective on their own. Plus, combining them could be toxic — and in some cases lethal.

Let's just assume, for the purpose of this story, that you, dear reader, clean everything super well and all of the time.

Olive oil is more than just a healthy cooking oil. It’s also a cleaning tool that can nourish surfaces and loosen stains, grease, and grime. While you wouldn’t want to use your fancy artisanal bottles for cleaning, it’s a good use for the stuff you buy by the gallon for regular cooking purposes.

Do you remember exchanging Valentines when you were a kid? The thrill of finding your locker or DIY mailbox stuffed with notes and treats from all your best friends, maybe even your crush? Well, it’s still a thing (although candy is discouraged these days) and your kids will also love trading cards with their classmates in a show of friendship. If you’re not the type to spend hours making them from scratch, try these cute Valentine’s Day card class packs you can find on Amazon.

No matter how big your kitchen is, floor space, countertop real estate, and cabinet shelves are always at a premium. One of the best ways to clear up some room is to use your walls (read: hang things up!). Whether you use adhesive hooks, installed hardware, over-the-door racks, or some fancy kind of system, hanging things instead of putting them on a shelf or on the counter will free up usable space and make your kitchen feel more organized and accessible.

Sometimes, the best kind of kitchen cleaning isn’t the top-to-bottom overhaul that takes a whole day to execute, but little blitzes of work you can put in while you wait for your leftovers to heat up. You know the tasks I speak of — the little things that can add up to a cleaner-looking kitchen by the end of the day or week, and can leave you just as satisfied as truly getting on your hands and knees and scrubbing. Here are 10 little kitchen tasks you can do in 60 seconds or less.

Kitchen towels are serious helpers in the kitchen. Not just used for drying (dishes, your hands, fruit, and more), they’re also what we grab in a pinch for a quick cleanup or as a workaround oven mitt or makeshift lid to keep food warm after it comes out of the oven. Plus, they can add some serious style to a kitchen. Of course, anytime you have something with so many roles, you run the risk of spreading germs — especially when you store it someplace where it gets even more exposure.

Quick: Where is your Dutch oven right now? Is it tucked away in the back of a corner cabinet? On display on the top shelf of your oh-so-organized open shelving situation? Turns out, those aren’t the smartest — or safest — places to store it. A cast iron Dutch oven isn’t just a heavy-duty cooker — it’s actually heavy. Some can weigh upwards of 20 pounds!