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How I Organized My Pantry So It Never Becomes a Mess Again

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, on purchases made after following an affiliate link. See my full disclosure here.

November 15, 2016 By Jackie

I had a million excuses for why I hadn’t organized our pantry…

  • Who sees it anyway?
  • It will take forever.
  • It’s working just fine.
  • It will never be pretty with wire shelves so why bother?

Guess what, I was wrong on all counts.

Organizing our pantry is the best time I’ve spent on our home all year long. Even though it’s not a magazine-worthy makeover and still has tan walls and wire shelves, it’s made a huge positive impact on our lives.

This is a realistic pantry makeover. Even if you can't add pretty wallpaper and change out your wire shelves, you can create a neat and organized pantry that will make you happy every time you open the door.

We’ve made several exciting updates to our kitchen this year…big things, like new appliances. So I didn’t think organizing the pantry would matter much, but it might be the one change that makes me the happiest.

Now I smile every time the pantry door opens.

I probably would have put off the pantry organization project forever, if it weren’t for my kids. My two boys are now at the age (6 and 9) where they are in and out of the kitchen constantly for snacks. I can’t seem to keep the pantry door closed anymore.

I used to hide all the kitchen mess and clutter behind the closed pantry door. When friends or family were over for dinner or to hang out and we were in the kitchen, I’d always make sure to retrieve what ever we needed from the pantry. I became the master of slipping in and out without exposing my guests to the horrors on the other side of the door.

I know I sound a little dramatic, but I’m actually embarrassed to show you the before picture. I don’t even know how I let it get like this. I’m not sure how we every found anything in there.

This is a realistic pantry makeover. Even if you can't add pretty wallpaper and change out your wire shelves, you can create a neat and organized pantry that will make you happy every time you open the door.

So I finally gave in and dedicated an afternoon to The Great Pantry Purge.

It started with removing everything from the pantry, which made my kitchen look like it got hit with a tornado.

cleaning out a pantry

It doesn’t look like it in the picture, but I had a simple system.

  • On one of the kitchen stools I had a large black garbage bag opened over the back of the stool to collect trash.
  • The stuff on the island in the foreground was for donation. (In the end, I took four brown paper grocery bags full of donations out of our small pantry.)
  • The stuff on the kitchen table was to keep and most of it, like the board games, went back in the pantry.
  • The food was just out of frame on the kitchen counter.

One of the reasons I never wanted to tackle the pantry was the “Pinterest pressure.” If you look for pantry ideas on Pinterest, you’ll quickly see pretty wall paper, beautiful new shelves, vinyl decals labeling all the containers, and a fortune of pretty baskets and glass jars.

I didn’t want any of that. Mostly because I didn’t want to go through the hassle and expense of replacing our wire shelving. So I didn’t think my pantry could ever measure up. Now, I think I was wrong.

Here’s what our pantry (with humble wire shelving) looks like now:

This is a realistic pantry makeover. Even if you can't add pretty wallpaper and change out your wire shelves, you can create a neat and organized pantry that will make you happy every time you open the door.

This is a realistic pantry makeover. Even if you can't add pretty wallpaper and change out your wire shelves, you can create a neat and organized pantry that will make you happy every time you open the door.

One of the things that helped me succeed with this transformation was functional styling. In the Styling Savvy course in Décorography, I teach Functional Styling.

Styling is arranging things so they look pretty. Functional styling is arranging useful things and everyday necessities so they look pretty too. I’ve always used functional styling strategies to keep my kitchen counters clutter-free. Now they’ve helped me reclaim my pantry too.

Here’s the simple organizing strategies that helped me transform our pantry:

This post contains affiliate links. I may receive a small commission on purchases made after following an affiliate link. See my full disclosure here.

Think In Zones

As I was putting the pantry back together, I really thought about how we would use it. That allowed me to break the pantry up into zones. Let me walk you through each of them.

Starting at the bottom is the game zone:

This is a realistic pantry makeover. Even if you can't add pretty wallpaper and change out your wire shelves, you can create a neat and organized pantry that will make you happy every time you open the door.

My kids love to play board games, but the stack of games had gotten out of control on the bottom shelf of the pantry. Because they couldn’t get a game out without toppling over the whole pile, I noticed they were playing with them less often.

I wanted to neatly fit all the board games on one side of the pantry in half the space they were consuming before. By filing them like books, they take up less space and make it easier for the kids to get a game out.

That allowed me to remove the bottom shelf on the other side to make room for the kitchen step stool and the large dog food storage bin (that had been floating aimlessly around our laundry room).

This is a realistic pantry makeover. Even if you can't add pretty wallpaper and change out your wire shelves, you can create a neat and organized pantry that will make you happy every time you open the door.

The next shelf up is the kids snack zone and dry good storage:

This is a realistic pantry makeover. Even if you can't add pretty wallpaper and change out your wire shelves, you can create a neat and organized pantry that will make you happy every time you open the door.

Before the makeover, my OXO food containers were the only thing my pantry had going for it. To freshen them up, I added the diagonal striped labels using my favorite labeling tip from Jen of I Heart Organizing…

THe easy way to make pretty pantry labels

She recommends making easy, affordable labels by printing out clear labels on a label maker and putting them on top of pretty washi tape. Instant pretty labels!

I used a Brother P-Touch Label Maker and black print on clear tape labels.

So smart - tape cooking instructions on the back of the container

I keep all of our dry ingredients in these containers. To make sure we don’t forget the preparation instructions, I cut them out from the package and tape them on the backside of the containers for quick reference.

On the other side of the pantry at this level is the kids snack and lunch center:

This is a realistic pantry makeover. Even if you can't add pretty wallpaper and change out your wire shelves, you can create a neat and organized pantry that will make you happy every time you open the door.

There were three important things I did to make this snack and lunch area functional:

  1. I put the snacks at kid level. They used to be up higher and the kids had to ask one of us to get them a snack. They are old enough now to grab their own. (We do keep only healthy snacks down here, and we monitor how many they’re tacking.)
  2. Taking off the outer packaging and organizing the snacks in plain view, makes this a grab n’ go station for the kids, so they aren’t rooting around a bunch of half empty boxes. I adore these divided pantry bins for keeping the different types of snacks separated.
  3. I dedicated some shelf space for the lunch boxes. Before the kids just crammed them anywhere and I felt like I was always moving them to get to something I needed for dinner. Now they have their own shelf space right next to the kids snacks.

On the next shelf up we store adult snacks and dog stuff:

This is a realistic pantry makeover. Even if you can't add pretty wallpaper and change out your wire shelves, you can create a neat and organized pantry that will make you happy every time you open the door.

The goal in this zone was to make our snacks easy to grab, but in a separate area from the kid snacks. We don’t want them confusing our protein bars for their granola bars. I used another divided pantry bin for our protein bars. We always keep a few different kinds on hand.

The adult snack area has my favorite new feature of the pantry (hint: we love nuts!), which we’ll talk about more in the Grab N’ Go section below.

Where the shelves meet in the corner, I use OXO turntables to hold canned goods and baking mixes. The turntables make the corner of the pantry so much more functional.

On the other side of this level, we also have a section for chips, which we don’t snack on, but use for some meals.

On the far right side, is the dog zone. We keep treats, a few cans of wet food, and a basket aptly labeled “dog stuff.” It holds special treats, medicine, and toys.

This is a realistic pantry makeover. Even if you can't add pretty wallpaper and change out your wire shelves, you can create a neat and organized pantry that will make you happy every time you open the door.

The last shelf (because after The Great Purge, there’s nothing on the top shelf) holds a random assortment of things we want to keep out of reach of the kids.

This is a realistic pantry makeover. Even if you can't add pretty wallpaper and change out your wire shelves, you can create a neat and organized pantry that will make you happy every time you open the door.

On the corner turntable, I keep all the cleaning supplies we use regularly in the kitchen. Off to the right we keep large containers of protein for shakes.

On the other side, I have a basket for baking and party/holiday stuff, like paper straws and egg-dying supplies. In the wooden bowl we’re currently keeping a small ration of Halloween candy for the boys. We keep it up high as a signal to them that they need to ask for help and permission to have candy.

This is a realistic pantry makeover. Even if you can't add pretty wallpaper and change out your wire shelves, you can create a neat and organized pantry that will make you happy every time you open the door.

Make It Grab N’ Go

One of my favorite things about the new pantry set up is that almost everything is grab and go. That means all the snacks we grab for daily are out in clear bins. We can easily find what we’re looking for. It also has made grocery shopping easier because we can quickly see what we are low on.

The best thing in this entire pantry is The Turntable of Nuts. All my paleo friends get it. The nut situation was dire before. We had bags and jars all over the place. One of the things we are in and out of the pantry for most frequently is a handful of nuts to snack on.

Genius! Use a kitchen organizer to sort and store nuts. This one is a spinning turntable.

I used this divided turntable to create nut storage. It can be used as a desk organizer too, but I found mine in the kitchen section at The Container Store. After a long hunt for something to store our nuts, I knew this was it. It can hold and compartmentalize five different types of nuts.

The only downside was it didn’t come with a lid. Thankfully one of my rarely used pot lids fits over top just fine and is easy to remove so we can access all the nuts at once.

My husband takes nuts to work to snack on too. He likes to package them in small snack bags, but he takes more of some kinds than others. This container and the small plastic scoops make the process easier for him.

Genius! Use a kitchen organizer to sort and store nuts. This one is a spinning turntable.

Now instead of riffling through bags and unscrewing lids constantly (okay, let’s be honest, the lids never made it back on the almonds and cashews), we can lift one lid and grab a variety of nuts.

Don’t Make Everything Visible

As much as I love seeing our nuts and snacks on display in plain sight, I didn’t want everything in the pantry visible.

I wanted to keep visual clutter at a minimum, so I put the baking and party supplies in a basket. It looks neat on the shelf and disguises all the random stuff inside. Same with the dog stuff.

Let There Be White Space

I don’t ever want my pantry to be crammed full again. I love all the “white space” I have now. I think if you can, it’s important to leave some empty shelf space. It makes the whole pantry feel more spacious. It also allows the light to flow down through the wire shelves. (There’s one pro to keeping the wire shelves!)

This is a realistic pantry makeover. Even if you can't add pretty wallpaper and change out your wire shelves, you can create a neat and organized pantry that will make you happy every time you open the door.

Get Creative with Containers

After organizing all the main zones, I had a few odds and ends left over without containers. Instead of buying more containers, I shopped my house for creative solutions.

I’m using two old drawers to store extra coffee and tea:

Use old drawers as "baskets" in a pantry.

I’m used a wooden salad bowl for the candy stash and I used an old dog food bowl to hold the small amount of canned dog food we keep on hand:

dog-food-storage

These creative containers add a little more color and texture to the pantry.

Now I love my pantry whether the door is open or closed…

This is a realistic pantry makeover. Even if you can't add pretty wallpaper and change out your wire shelves, you can create a neat and organized pantry that will make you happy every time you open the door.

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Comments

  1. Denise Cartiglia-Alberti says

    November 15, 2016 at 8:18 am

    Great job, Jackie! Using lazy-sue’s in the corners is the best way to avoid wasted space! Where did you find those pretty white baskets? Love ’em!

    • Jackie says

      November 15, 2016 at 9:54 am

      Thanks Denise. The white baskets are from Target (and only $8 each).

  2. Yvonne says

    November 15, 2016 at 8:31 am

    Thanks Jackie! Great tips and pantry! I’ve tried the zone organizing too, it helps….BUT I don’t have a pantry!! So food seems to be squirrelled away all over the place. The tall cupboard that loses a shelf due to the light switch box, the deep (dark) corner cupboard and in the island – which works the best. It’s a lovely big kitchen, but I really don’t enjoy the lack of a pantry. Do you have any other tips for working with this kind of situation?

    • Jackie says

      November 15, 2016 at 9:59 am

      Yvonne, My last two homes did not have a pantry, so I know what a blessing it is to have one now. I think the best thing you can do is to dedicate one or more cupboards all in the same are of the kitchen to food storage. And don’t be afraid to reconfigure shelves within your cupboards to fit what you need to store there. They do sell the lazy-susans I use in a smaller size, which could be great in upper cabinets so stuff doesn’t get lost in the back. Also, have you considered an alternate storage place for pantry items? My parents added cupboards in there basement to store canned goods, non-perishables, and bulk items. That way they only keep the things they use daily in the actual kitchen.

      • Yvonne says

        November 18, 2016 at 8:42 pm

        Thanks Jackie! I’ll have to try those!

  3. Amy says

    November 15, 2016 at 8:40 am

    This looks wonderful. What perfect timing – I also have wire shelves and was just thinking this week how I wish I could see how others have organized a pantry using wire shelving. I also have a little boy and really like the container you use for the kid snack station.

    • Jackie says

      November 15, 2016 at 10:00 am

      Thanks Amy. The divided container for the kids snack is so wonderful. I think it empowers them to choose a snack when they can see all the options easily.

  4. Linda says

    November 15, 2016 at 8:49 am

    Thanks Jackie! What fun ideas!

  5. Tracey says

    November 15, 2016 at 10:01 am

    Love it. I’ve just moved somewhere with pantry space that I’ve never had before, so I’ll have to do something to organise it before it becomes unmanageable!

    • Jackie says

      November 15, 2016 at 10:28 pm

      Yes. Set up a system straight away. I really regret it going years before I did anything to put this space in order.

    • L'Anita says

      April 4, 2017 at 1:41 pm

      Love this! Will definitely be using these ideas in the pantry-purge I feel coming on! Thanks for sharing.

  6. Sirkku says

    November 15, 2016 at 6:29 pm

    Great ideas, thank you so much for sharing!

  7. Britt says

    November 16, 2016 at 5:10 pm

    We also have wire shelving and I did not care to spend the time, effort and cost to make it like some pinterest picture. Thank you for affirming that for the rest of us:). It can still look nice but not be overboard crazy with a million glass jars with fancy labels

  8. Deb says

    November 19, 2016 at 6:36 pm

    I love the kitchen chairs I see in the background! Where did you get them?

    • Jackie says

      November 22, 2016 at 7:20 am

      Deb, The mint green stools are these ones (affiliate link) from Target.

  9. Maria says

    January 17, 2017 at 7:53 am

    Hi Jackie,
    Can you tell me what snacks you have in the bins for the children? I have a hard time finding packaged snacks that are reasonably healthy.

    And thank you for showing us your pantry! Lots of good ideas, including how you store your games. I’ve been belly-aching over how to store ours for a couple of years.

    • Jackie says

      January 18, 2017 at 4:56 pm

      Maria, We are big fans of Annie’s line of kid snacks, especially the gluten-free options. We also like the Simply Balanced Organic line at Target – that’s what most of those blue packages are.

Trackbacks

  1. Fave Finds: Organizing on a Budget | School of Decorating by Jackie Hernandez says:
    January 17, 2017 at 8:30 am

    […] 2. Y Weave Baskets – These plastic baskets are super affordable and come in multiple sizes and colors. I used the medium white baskets in my pantry. […]

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