Has anyone solved the problem with pot and pan lids?

I used to turn all lids inside out in the matching pot and then stack them. When I was by myself, I had fewer pieces of cookware, and this worked fine.

When my husband and I merged our nonmatching cookware, we nested the pots and skillets in two stacks (nestability determines which stack) on a wide shelf and piled all the lids in between them. This has worked well for some 34 years. I put the large glass lid underneath the largest stainless steel one, so it rests directly on the shelf. There are actually very few avalanches.

I made a number of round pads out of quilted fabric edged with bias tape, and I line each of the special coated surfaces with one of those so it doesn’t get scratched by whatever nests inside it.

Nails/hooks inside cabinet doors let you use otherwise wasted space.

Picture

I have a lid rack that holds them all standing up.

I do as @Jeruba: lids get put on upside down and then another pot/pan rests on top of that one. I have no nostalgic attachment to cookware- if it warps, cracks, chips or whatever, it goes away. Only things that can serve their entire purpose and are in shape ready to go can be in the cabinets. Odds n ends go to goodwill.

We store our pots, pans and lids in an upper cabinet just to the left of the stove, above a convenient landing spot on the counter. The three shelves on the left contain stacks of either skillets, sauce pans, or dutch ovens depending on the shelf, and the middle shelf on the right holds all the lids kind of leaning on each other. The upper cabinets are shallower than the lower cabinets, which seems to help contain the lids. Lower right holds potholders and kitchen towels, upper right holds an enameled dutch oven and its lid.

I have a lid rack like @YARNLADY and some lids I store on the pots they fit.

@jaytkay I like that solution, but I have a lot of lids, and I am not sure I have enough door space to do that.
Thank you everyone! Lurve all around!

I like to throw them down the stairs, sounds exactly like some cheap oriental kung fu movie soundtrack.
You could almost feel like you were right there in the thick of the action….no really.

I just saw this tip on Real Simple’s website: Use a tension rod to hold your lids. It’s talking about drawer storage, but I don’t see why the same idea wouldn’t work along the back wall of a cabinet, too.