Pantry Organization

I have wanted to purge, reorganize, and beautify our pantry for quite some time. We tried reorganizing a while back when I transferred several staples to glass jars and got rid of some things that were unhealthy or overly processed. However, the pantry slowly crept back to its state of usual disorder.

I’ve been tackling the pantry little by little for months now, so I thought I would show you a peek of my progress:

 Our pantry is located in a kitchen closet lined with shelves and fortunately the ceiling is high so there is a lot of vertical space for storage. It’s sometimes tight fitting into the pantry and we never have enough room to store everything! I’m sure I’m not the only one with that problem 🙂

condiments, sauces, oils and vinegars and held together on a tray- the tiny bottles are different speciality types of balsamic vinegars and olive oils

canned goods are together and the chicken wire basket holds canning lids and rims

I did a major clean sweep and made some structural changes in order to see and fit things much better. I also tried to group like items by function and located the most used things in the easiest to reach places.

my baking supplies are corralled together on this shelf

Our pantry holds items such as:

•  dry goods (beans, rice, pasta, nuts etc.)
•  oils, vinegars, and sauces
•  baking supplies (flours, sugars, cornmeal, etc.)
•  sweeteners, chocolate and honey
•  canned goods and preserves
•  potatoes and onions
•  beverages
•  cereal and crackers
•  paper towels and party/entertaining supplies
•  paper shopping bags
•  home canning equipment, food dehydrator, roasting pans
•  plastic bags, wraps, foils, etc.
•  misc. items (lunch boxes, nursery water, egg cartons, etc.)

I added a skirt in some brown check fabric to hide the miscellaneous items and make for a softer look.

I have never been a fan of this rack on the inside of the pantry door, but it does hold a lot of random stuff that we don’t use too often. I’m hoping to gradually get rid of a lot of this stuff and simplify down to the basics.

The biggest change we made was adding a fourth shelf to the pantry (lowest shelf). It really provides so much more storage and of course we had no trouble filling it up. My hubby also constructed more open shelving just outside of the pantry door overtop of our trash can to match our other open shelving. Right now we are storing our Berkey Water Filter there, along with coffee and tea supplies, cook books, plus some other odds and ends.

shelving outside pantry door

My goal is to gradually whittle away items that are probably not great for a real foods-based diet. Things like white flour and white sugar, processed or boxed items that can be replaced by healthier alternatives, and any unhealthy snacks.

a chicken chalkboard wall hanging for jotting down supplies needed

I feel like the pantry is more functional and now that I can see everything cleanly organized. It helps me to avoid duplicating items and it’s easy to see what staples need to be replenished.