Real-Life Pantry Organization

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I have seen those beautiful pictures of pantries that look like a department store, and I have never seen one like that in the home of an actual family.  Just ain’t possible. Frankly, I’m just really happy to have this closet pantry that I can dedicate solely to foods.  It will never look like a department store, but if I can find everything when I need it, and it is neat, I am happy!  At the end of the school year, it had gotten a little out of control, so here is how I took charge of this beast and added a few fun elements with glass storage and chalk board stickers. Before and after photos are below.

So, to do this, I needed to gather the supplies I would need to make the most out of this space.  I also have this great home organizer from Thirty-One on the door of this pantry. Here’s what I bought:

• Clear canisters for flours
• Mason Jars in 16 oz, quart, 8 oz., and a few 4 oz. I love the wide mouth jars for the larger sizes, makes it easier to get food out.
• Freezer Jar lids.  This isn’t really necessary if you don’t mind the canning lids that the jars come with.
• Plastic air-tight storage for pastas, sugars, etc.
• Plastic storage for cereal and oatmeal.
• Small shelves. 
• Wire Baskets that hang from the bottom shelves.
• Chalk board stickers
• Chalk pen

Here is the heinous “before.” Note all of the boxes shoved on top of other boxes, open bags of dry goods that never made it into their containers, and no real distinct categories of foods.

Some people advocate taking everything off the shelves to start, but that just seemed overwhelming to me, and I already knew that I wanted a 1) baking goods shelf, 2) cereal and pasta shelf 3) canned goods shelf and 4) drinks and snacks shelf.  

So my plan of attack was to clear off one shelf and only put back things that belonged in that category.  I used my counter space as the staging area, where I had my containers and chalk labels set up.  I also used a funnel to get putzier items into containers. I started with the baking shelf. I knew that I could easily gather all of the baking supplies and get this shelf organized. So below you see it cleared off.  I should also mention that I cleaned each shelf with my Shaklee Basic H cleaner.  Love that stuff, non-toxic and all. Doesn’t stink or stain and cleans like a boss. 

Then, I put back the baking goods, and left everything else that didn’t belong out on the floor or counter. Now, doesn’t that feel good! One shelf already looking beautiful.  I put the flours, oils, and sugars there.   On to the next shelf.  I knew that this shelf would be the pasta and cereal shelf, so I put all of that on the floor or counter, got it all into containers that were labeled correctly, and put back only the appropriate items.  This was awesome, because I was able to condense so many of the random bags and boxes into labeled containers and gain so much extra space. 

Here is my counter staging area.  I put everything into containers here, gave it a label and used my chalk pen to give it a name.

These chalk markers work great.  It takes it a few minutes to show up, once you write the name.  You can erase and re-use it too! (usually takes a wet washcloth to get it off, it has great staying power!) 

Below you can see the pasta area.  I also have rice, barley, and other like foods in there.  I didn’t put everything into containers, especially if it were in a sealed bag or box. 

I then moved on to the upper two shelves.  The one above the baking goods is canned foods, some smaller baking items on the lazy susan (garlic in the blue cup, boullion, vanilla, baking powder and soda, corn starch). In the hanging wire basket, I have nuts and baking chocolate, and then below it are some extra spices, honey, syrup, raisins). Above that shelf, I have some snack items (trail mix, nuts) and then drinks like tea and lemonade. Lookin much better!

On the very top shelf, I put things that we rarely need: extra peanut butter.  And yes, that is a lot of peanut butter.  We eat a lot of it, and Hubs buys it on sale in bulk, but only the natural kind–no sugar or preservatives.  I also have our pasta maker up there, birthday cake supplies, plastic silverware, and some random bottles of rum and whiskey (cider, anyone?!!) 

We don’t keep a lot of canned goods in this pantry, since we try to cook most things from fresh ingredients, and my home-canned stuff (marinara, salsa, etc.) is down on shelves in the basement (but you can see one jar of my marinara sauce up here!) 

And here is the end result, muuuuuuch better!  The floor level only has a stool, our roaster, some kids’ candy, and bulk rice now.  Ahhhhhhh….if only it magically stayed this way.  But sure makes me happy to look at it now!!

One final bonus…I created this chore list a while back to keep us on track and it hangs on the home organizer.  I even laminated it. Does that mean it happens? No.  Does that mean it isn’t a good idea? No. I aspire to this.