How to Choose the Best Pot Rack

Quit crouching down to reach inside your kitchen cabinets for pots and pans. And even if you keep them in a closet at eye level or within easy arms-reach, don't you sometimes find yourself digging through a stack of pans to get to the one on the bottom?

If you're like me, you probably find your pot and pan closet a big annoyance at times. And when you have an avid cook in the house who likes--who needs--his pots and pans, the easiest solution to this mess is to buy a pot rack.

Buying a pot rack is especially wise if you lack space anyway in your kitchen cabinets for easy pot storage. A pot rack provides you with easy access to your pots at a glance and eliminates stacks. And they look neat in your home too! Stores offer an overwhelming amount of pot rack choices. Here are six steps to organizing your pots and pans and choosing a pot rack:

STEP 1: EVALUATE YOUR POT STORAGE NEEDS
Collect all of your pots and pans and place them on a table. Then you will make two stacks. Put any pot or pan that you have not used in one year in stack one.

Now stack two is pots and pans you have used within a year. Take any pots or pans from this stack that are in bad shape (e.g. interior coating scraped off significantly) and put them in stack one.

Now look for duplicate pots and pans in stack two. You may indeed cook with two frying pans or three stock pots at once. But do you need five frying pans that are the exact same size? If the answer is no, put the excess pots and pans in stack one.

Now stack one should be divided accordingly among the trash, charity and storage in your garage for future usage.

Stack two are your active pots and pans, the ones for which you're buying the pot rack.

STEP 2: ASSESS YOUR POTS AND PANS
Look at the second stack of pots and pans you've just created. In general, determine and consider these factors, which will help you decide on a pot rack choice and pot rack placement:

►What are the dimensions of your pots and pans?

►What are their individual weights (so you get the right individual hooks)? Or determine collective weights if they're to be grouped together on a single pot rack.

►How many pots and pans are there?

►How many of the pots and pans have handles appropriate for hanging from a hook? How many do not? You can store ones that don't hang on a freestanding pot rack.

STEP 3: DECIDE WHERE YOU WILL PUT A POT RACK
Now that you know which pots and pans require storage and what characteristics they have, you're next step is to decide potential places for a pot rack. Pot racks can be wall-mounted, ceiling-mounted or freestanding.

►Measure any available space in the kitchen as well as in the dining room. Consider floor space, wall space and ceiling space plus corner/crevice space.

►Know where your wall studs and ceiling joists or ceiling beams are located.

►Consider your needs. Do you crave convenience and time-saving attributes? Then you want pot racks nearby when cooking. But if you infrequently use stock pots, for instance, then put those in the dining room.

►If you want to hang your pots and pans, would you prefer to hang them nested and turned sideways (holds more but less easily viewed) or front-facing (holds less but more easily viewed)? Or do you want each pot and pan to hang at different lengths? All of these choices can be accomplished with various sizes and types of chains and hooks on your walls, ceilings or pot racks. For example you can get a grid pot rack that uses movable hooks or double hooks or use screw-in angled pot hooks on the wall or screw-in ceiling hooks with multiple chain lengths.

►Make sure the pot rack won't block a kitchen cabinet door from opening.

►Make sure the pot rack won't interfere with ceiling lighting. You don't want to cook in the shadows of your kitchen.

►Consider your ceiling height. Is it higher or lower than average? In that case you may need more chain for a ceiling pot rack or decide to go with a wall-mounted pot rack instead. Your height may also determine the convenience of these factors.

STEP 4: CONSIDER THESE POT RACK ATTRIBUTES
►Do you like to clean and polish a lot? Get chrome if you do and wood if you don't.

►How do you feel about stains, including greases stains, or scratches? Placement of the pot rack may help you to avoid most stains (e.g. away from the stove). Scratches are inevitable and may show up more on some materials.

►Which pot rack material holds weight appropriate to your needs?

►What pot rack materials or finishes do you favor for all the reasons discussed above plus for your personal viewing pleasure: wrought iron, stainless steel, metal, wood, painted/stained finish, hammered steel, chrome, graphite, copper...

►What's your aesthetic pleasure? Do you like a wooden rustic or countrified look in your home? Or a contemporary sleek silver chrome appearance?

STEP 5: KNOW WHAT'S AVAILABLE IN POT RACKS
►wall mounted pot rack - with or without an accessory shelf for cookbooks.

►corner pot rack - makes good use of a crevice in your kitchen.

►ceiling pot rack --shapes include circle, oval, rectangular, square octagonal, half round, half circle and with or without a grid (hang moveable hooks on the grid). Also you can get fancy with a dome or crown-shaped ceiling pot rack.

►ceiling bar pot rack - a straight line/bar shape.

►wall mounted bar pot rack - also a straight line/bar shape.

►freestanding pot rack - also called pot stands, cookware stands or etageres. These can have vertical shelves or tiered shelves. They set on the floor.

►lighted pot rack - comes with shaded lights or downlights that may replace your regular lighting

►silhouette pot racks - also called a decorative scroll pot rack, this is a ceiling- or wall-mounted rack with a scroll border design such as a wilderness theme, oak leaf scroll, etc.

►"not pot racks" - If the official product name isn't pot rack that doesn't mean it can't be one. Consider using appropriately shaped plants stands and sturdy shelving products you find in any section of the store.

STEP 6: FINAL WORDS OF POT RACK WISDOM
You should hang pot racks in a sturdy fashion and in a place where guests won't accidentally hit their head on a pot when they're sneaking into your kitchen at midnight for a snack. Always buy hooks or hardware components that support your pot and pan weight needs. Read the packaging for this weight support information. It seems like a lot of work to plan properly for a pot rack but in the end you're meeting a storage need that you'll use for probably the lifetime of your home. So make it functional but also make it look good.