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The Lazy Susan, also called a dumb waiter, has been around for as long as anyone can remember. The 1950s and ’60s were probably when this rotating tray was at its peak, but the ’70s saw it start to dwindle in popularity — until now. New variations of the Lazy Susan are popping up as people hunt for ways to maximize space and keep things organized in their homes. From the kitchen to the laundry, the bathroom to the bar — almost any room in your home could benefit from a Lazy Susan.
The circular turntable (known as a full round) has morphed into a variety of different shapes to fit neatly and snugly into the spaces they occupy. You can now find a half-round Lazy Susan, one shaped like a kidney, a D-shaped variation, the half-moon, pie-cut, and even some really cool ones called blind corner systems for your corner cabinets that you can pull out to access everything stored from the front to the back. That last one is great for your seemingly depth-less Tupperware cupboard, where you can never seem to find a lid to match the container you want to use.
But you can use a Lazy Susan for pretty much anything, from spices and spreads to condiments and cans. You can even use it to keep your eating utensils in order, or use it to display your fancy tea set. It’s one of the best organizational hacks to create more kitchen countertop space. The effects can be monumental, and your kitchen will thank you for keeping things so neat and organized. Let’s take a look at five really awesome ways that a Lazy Susan can transform your kitchen into a hyper-organized space.
A tiered Lazy Susan maximizes vertical space usage
A tiered Lazy Susan is exactly what the name suggests — two or more turntables stacked on top of each other. These are amazing for optimizing vertical space in your kitchen, especially when you have a smaller kitchen in a more compact home like an apartment. The tiered Lazy Susan, like this Ovicar 2-Tier Wood Rotating Spice Rack, is great for countertops. It can store things such as spices or your tea, coffee, hot chocolate, and sugar collection — things that you use regularly and often need access to quickly, like when you’re cooking up roasted orange and nutmeg chicken and remembered the nutmeg at the last minute. Tiered Lazy Susans are also great in a corner cupboard where you often keep things like your pots and pans, bowls, sieves, and other more bulky items.
Instead of thrusting your hand deep into the depths of the cupboard in the hopes of finding the kitchen scale you were looking for, you just rotate your turntable until it brings around the utensil you’re hunting for — but without the hunt. Easy peasy. These are also great for sauces and cans, or to house your snack selection, especially the adjustable Lazy Susans, where you get bottles and boxes of different sizes and heights. These adjustable ones are also great for your wine collection, allowing you to keep wine bottles at the bottom, then use another tier for glasses, and a third one for bottle openers and stoppers.
Cluster similar or complementary items together
Keeping similar or complementary items together is the height of efficiency and organization. And it just makes good sense. Jumping onto spices again, storing all your spices together on the Lazy Susan keeps everything in one place, as opposed to having some of them on one shelf of the pantry, and others in a drawer. A useful tip here is to write the name of each spice on little labels and tape those to the top of the bottles. That way, you can find your garlic salt or ground coriander with ease, and not go through the hassle of twisting each bottle to see what it is or trying to remember which color lid belongs to which dried herb. You can also use the labeling trick with cans, clustering your canned goods together on your Lazy Susan.
Moving away from foodstuffs, your Lazy Susan is also super to keep your cleaning products together underneath the sink. A quick spin will bring around the dishwashing liquid, and another will deliver the window cleaner. A lot of folks also keep their family’s medicines and vitamins in the kitchen — a Lazy Susan with raised sides (called a high-sided Lazy Susan, like this YouCopia Crazy Susan), or one that has removable compartments shaped like wedges to fit neatly around the turntable like the Lamu Lazy Susan Organizer Turntable, is very handy to keep the headache and flu stuff separate from the Band-Aids and cotton swabs.
Use a wedged or indented Lazy Susan for corners
This is where your seemingly odd-shaped Lazy Susans, like your kidney-shaped and pie-cut turntables, really shine. The kidney-shaped turntable has a wide triangular wedge cut out of it to fit the intersecting shelves of an L-shaped corner cupboard, so you’re able to open and close the doors perfectly around the Lazy Susan. The pie-cut table is similar in shape to the kidney shaped one, but it attaches to the door of the cabinet so the door moves inside the cabinet when the Lazy Susan is out for you to grab your goodies, then you spin it again to return the door to the outside for your clean closed-door look.
Whichever one you go for, get one with a rim to help keep your items from falling out when you either turn the Lazy Susan or open the cabinet door. This helps to prevent spills and messes if you have food items in your corner cupboard. This setup can be a money and health-saver, too — those deep, dark nooks and crannies of the corner cupboard often become the final resting place for lesser-used items, like sprinkles for your daughter’s birthday cake, or that corn flour that you used once to thicken gravy. These items either go stale or they become magnets for kitchen-loving bugs like cockroaches or ants.
Keep your fridge organized with a fridge Lazy Susan
There are some of us who are bosses at keeping the fridge organized — and then there are some of us who aren’t. For the latter folk, a Lazy Susan (or a few) will help you organize your fridge like a pro. Get a few turntables (just check them against the space inside your fridge for a good fit) and place them on the racks, then stack them with similar items. Jars of jam, sauce, and toppings can live together, away from the retirement village at the back of almost every fridge.
This is the beauty of the Lazy Susan and its rotating super powers — no item will be forgotten in the recesses. Small Tupperware containers with leftover ingredients from meal prep can be stacked on another. If you’re a snacky person, use a Lazy Susan for your collection of cheeses, pickles, relishes, and other snacks so they’re all together for you to choose from when you’re feeling peckish.
The Lazy Susans also help with managing messes, leaks, and spills, which often happen in a fridge whether it’s from not-quite-cool leftover food sweating condensation, or something taken out hastily that has spilled. Sometimes we don’t clean up the mess properly, creating a health risk. But with the Lazy Susan, all you need to do is take out the one with the mess and give it wash. You can even get different shapes of Lazy Susans to fit more precisely in your fridge, optimizing the space.
Invert your Lazy Susan and attach hooks to hang cooking utensils
No one said you can’t repurpose or upscale your Lazy Susan and use it for the same thing but in a more creative way. One of those ways is to screw or hammer a few hooks into the surface of the Lazy Susan, then turn it upside down and attach it to the underside of one of your floating cupboards. You’ll want to use a wooden Lazy Susan for this idea, or you can go with the wire option and just hang your hooks from the wire strands. Just note that this may not be as secure as fixing it into the material of the Lazy Susan. Position it near your cooking area and you can hang your primary cooking utensils from the hooks, such as spoons, spatulas, ladles, and so forth.
A little turn of the wheel and your desired utensil is there. Or, take it to your scullery area and hang sponges and dishcloths from it. You can even use it to hang stem glasses from — though we recommend using a rectangular Lazy Susan rather than a round one for this task. Instead of the hooks, you’ll attach glass holder racks (you may need a slightly bigger Lazy Susan for this one), then slide a selection of Champagne flutes, white wine glasses, red wine glasses, or whichever glasses you use at home. Then (gently) rotate your Lazy Susan to select your glass of choice. This is a great alternative to attaching the racks directly under a counter or cabinet.
