The usual sequence is to look at a chaotic cupboard, decide it needs bins, and order them. Reverse it. Take everything out, deal with what you find, and then look at the empty shelves, because a surprising number of storage problems turn out to be ownership problems wearing a disguise.
The four piles, done properly
Empty the cupboard completely onto a table and sort into keep, relocate, pass on and bin. Do not put anything back until the shelf is bare and wiped. Half measures produce a rearranged cupboard rather than a cleared one, and the rearranged version fills up again within a month.
Duplicates are where the space is hiding
Most kitchen cupboards hold three part-used bottles of the same thing, two openers and a drawer of takeaway sachets. Combining and discarding duplicates typically frees a third of the shelf without any purchase. If a shelf is a third emptier, you may not need a single bin.
Only then decide what to buy
Look at what remains and ask whether it needs corralling, raising or dividing. Small items that roll, tall items hiding short ones and categories that get mixed are the genuine cases for a container. If you do reach that point, catalogues such as https://mdesign-us.com/ make it easy to match a bin to the shelf you have just measured, and by now you know exactly what that shelf holds.
Storage bought first becomes storage of storage
Buying bins before sorting almost guarantees the wrong sizes, and the wrong sizes end up holding things you were going to discard anyway. You have then paid for permission to keep clutter more neatly. That is the mechanism by which organising becomes an expensive hobby rather than a solution.
- One cupboard at a time, fully emptied
- Wipe the shelf before anything goes back
- Take the pass-on bag out of the house the same week
- Measure only after the shelf holds what you are keeping
- Write down what you actually need before opening a shop
The things nobody wants to decide about
Every cupboard has a few objects with a decision attached: the appliance from a relative, the kit for a hobby you paused. Put them in one labelled box with a date rather than letting them block a shelf. Revisit in six months, when the decision is easier because nothing has been missed.
What a cleared cupboard tells you
Once a shelf holds only what you use, the remaining problem is usually small and specific: a set of lids that will not stack, a bag of rice that spills. Solve those two things and stop. The cupboard does not need to look like a showroom to work perfectly well.