Happy Friday friends!
Do you have any plans to do some organization this weekend? If so, I hope you’ll find inspiration from this post! Today I wanted to share with you how I reorganized our pantry. It’s kind of funny for me though, I really debated in my head whether or not it was “worth showing.” It’s not a pretty space. There aren’t jars filled with multi-colored beans and pastas. It’s just a pantry, in real life…
…and that’s what’s funny to me. When did the pantry become a space that needed to be a showstopper? Really…how many people have come into your house and opened your pantry? The point I want to make today is this…if you’ve been holding back from organizing a space in your home because “it’s too much money to buy jars, bins and baskets” or “it will never look like that picture you pinned on Pinterest, so why bother”
Stop holding yourself back!
You can have an organized and completely functional space without spending a dime. Here’s my pantry organization for example…
A few days ago when I showed you how I reorganized my fridge, I also showed you what it looked like two years ago when I first organized it. I’m going to do the same today with our pantry. Two years ago, when we first moved into this house our pantry looked like this…
It worked for a long time, but within the past few months I realized a lot of stuff needed to be tweaked to better suit our lifestyle. Here’s what mainly stopped working…
- Those metal drawer systems were almost always empty because we don’t buy a lot of canned goods.
- Dry goods in jars just weren’t being used enough and taking up too much pantry space.
- Started keeping snacks in our snack center.
- Most used items were on the bottom of the pantry, which just doesn’t make sense. They should be in clear view and easily accessible.
- Needed space to hold lunch box essentials for school, so I could keep my counters clear of clutter.
Once I figured out what was going wrong with our pantry, I cleared it out. Threw away old/expired items and made the decision to get rid of the wire drawer systems. Now that the space below was cleared I had enough room to put our trashcan and recycling bin in there, which is awesome because before it was in the corner of our kitchen out in the open.
I paid attention to where my eyes focused when I was looking for something. In the morning, my line of sight was down for some reason so that’s where I decided to keep breakfast items like cereals and oatmeal. The bottom shelf also holds “randomish” items like popcorn, extra boxes of salt, vinegars and syrup.
The next shelf holds rows of soups, beans, and soup base mixes. It’s also where I put the boxes of macaroni and cheese. You’ll also notice that I did end up reusing a few of the old jars. The only reason was because those items were in bags that were already opened and I didn’t want bugs getting into them.
I thought this idea was GENIUS…Put the cooking times, and water ratio on them. I got that awesome idea from Becky’s organized pantry where she did it for pasta. That will definitely make things easier!
Staying with the same idea for the next shelf I just kept everything in clusters and rows. Pastas, sauces, canned tomatoes, and tuna. These are things we go through pretty often…
Everything is still really easy to find and maneuver around without having to be put in jars, boxes or bins. It’s working great so far, but just like any organizing project I do, things could change again 🙂
As for those baking ingredients like flour, sugars etc…The bin I once used for snacks is now my “baking box” and since I rarely need those items (I don’t bake) I put that on the top shelf.
The only other thing I did to make my life easier is to create a “lunchbox caddy.”
This handled crate is where I keep my daughter’s lunchbox, and lunch essentials like bread for sandwiches, a jar of plastic forks, napkins, and I always toss a chocolate mint in there 🙂 This keeps all those loose items from cluttering up the pantry and it’s easy for me to grab and put on the counter when it’s time to put together her lunch for school.
Is it the prettiest pantry on the web? Not even close, friends, but it works, it’s SO FUNCTIONAL, and it’s organized the best it can be for now.
I hope you feel ready to tackle a project this weekend. Even if it’s just something small like reorganizing your spice drawer, or going through the junk drawer. Do it for you, and your peace of mind. I’m super pleased with the way our pantry is functioning for us now. It’s not cluttered, and everything is easy to see and grab.
If you’d like to take a peek at the other spaces I’ve organized this month in our kitchen, check out my kitchen organizing page while you’re here and as always I’d love it if you followed along on Facebook and Pinterest.
Talk to you soon friends, take care and happy organizing!
XO
I like your take on this project! I try to be pretty organized and do not believe that we need 101 containers to do so. Organized by like items, in rows, etc. works great. I have grown people at my house and the pantry has a lot more food but it works find without buckets and multiple containers.