Hi friends! We had another snow day yesterday so I thought* it would be a good time to rip apart my pantry and reorganize. Our kitchen is really small and the builders grade storage space is a joke so having a clean and organized pantry makes such a huge impact. When my pantry is organized I feel like we waste less because we can see everything we need! Here’s my process for organizing:
Step One: PURGE. EVERYTHING. I take a giant garbage bag and toss all expired food, anything that isn’t expired I put on the counter. I empty, wash and throughly dry all containers.
Step Two: Make A Plan. After all of my containers are dry I eyeball where I want things and what will fit in which container. Then I start a recycling pile of all of the boxed and bagged stuff!
Step Three: Organize!! On the top shelf I keep, foil, parchment paper, snack bags, kabob sticks and cheesecloth in a cheap magazine organizer that I bought years ago at Homegoods. I think this is the best way to keep stuff that can really take up a ton of space. Next I have a basket where I sloppily wrote ‘Dish Towels Only’ years ago (and I can’t scrub it off) so I fold my dishtowels and put them in there. After that I have all of the sticky stuff I don’t want my toddler to get ahold of; honey, agave, syrup! If she got her tiny hands on any of that I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. The next shelf down I start my collection of oxo containers, I got these as a bridal shower gift, I think they are kind of costly to buy without a coupon so I would really try to wait until they go on sale but they are REALLY WORTH IT! You also could buy them from Homegoods gradually and build your collection over time. In these containers I keep everything from chia seeds to spaghetti. Next I have glass jars that I found in the target dollar spot for 5$ a piece!!! My idea was just to keep flour in them, but, I ran out of room so I put goldfish in one of them and used another oxo container for cereal…. Not perfect but close enough! After that I have my oils, vinegars, canned goods and some spices. I use a riser I found years ago at Homegoods (Note; I live less than 10 minutes from Homegoods so I shop there A LOT!). Here’s a similar one I found on amazon, I really like this because it adds sooooo much space and it’s easy to grab what you need and you can see everything you’ve got! Around September when all of the back to college stuff went on super sale at target I found these really cheap cabinet organizers and I put cans on the bottom and leftover spices on top, it works for now! On the ground I use a bucket that I already had to keep all of my reusable shopping bags and UNOPENED bags of snacks! On the inside of the pantry door I have a spice rack, I’m waiting on another one so I’ll have even more usable space! Hanging on the spice rack is my grandma’s apron and my husbands bottle openers. Under the spice rack I keep Emerson’s bibs, and her EZPZ Happy Mat bags so I don’t need to search for them when we go out to dinner!
Note: I am a lover of my label maker but, I have a two year old who doesn’t really take long naps anymore so I didn’t really have time to label anything other than expiration dates, I taped those to the bottoms of my containers. If you have time to label with pretty labels or label maker…. DO IT! This just works for me!
Step Four: Decor. I added this little sign that my friend Lindsay at The Wooden Frame sent to me. The quality is amazing, it ties my little project together perfectly and I think it looks so cute above our tiny door!
Let me know if any of these organizational solutions work in your kitchen!
-Katie.
How They Mom 