I have posted a lot of pictures of my hidden pantry, and it’s mostly of my coffee station and mug rack area. A lot of people wonder what my actual pantry looks like which is to the left of my coffee station. I’ve never shared it with people because it was kind of embarrassing! ha! It’s seriously #hotmess central! Are you ready to see it? Here it is!
It’s a clutter of food and nothing is organized. When we’re looking for something in the pantry, the response is always, “Where in the pantry?” It’s like good luck trying to find anything in there!
You’ll notice that we went with pipe shelving for our pantry. Wait, did you even notice? I remember when we first saw the pantry shelving before we moved in, and I was like Oh Em Gee! It turned out sooo good! Now, I wish I had taken a picture of the pantry before we moved in because once we moved in and added more and more food on the shelving, it was like what pipe shelving? You can’t really notice it with all the food cluttered everywhere.
My organization dreams came true though! ha! I’m so happy to be partnering with The Container Store! Their products have completely transformed my pantry! Take a look for yourself!
It’s seriously night and day, and I feel like I’m happier going in there. Being a #hotmess mom, is this how organized people feel like all the time?! HAHA!
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…and I’m so happy that you can actually see our pipe shelving!
You guys should have seen me opening up the packages I received from The Container Store! You know you’re getting old when you’re like a little kid in a candy store opening up pantry organizers 😉
I’m no professional organizer, but here are some of the steps I took to have a more organized pantry:
1. Remove unnecessary items. Go through your pantry and remove the items that’s expired, stale, and let’s be real..should not even be in the pantry 😉
2. Group stuff together. Group all the boxed items like pasta, pancake mix, mac&cheese together. Group bread/tortillas/bagels together. Group kids’ snacks together. Group jars together. Group spices together. Group drink items together. Before my pantry was organized, I had cans on one shelf, more cans on another shelf, cans on the left side of the pantry, and cans on the right side. In the picture below, the image on the left is the “before”…cans just stacked where ever there was room. Now I have them stored on a gravity feed can rack. I know exactly where to go if I need to grab a can. When you have everything grouped together, that will make your life easier when putting away groceries in the pantry. You know exactly where to put it!
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3. Get rid of boxes/bags. Do you go into your pantry, grab a cereal box and find it empty? Or you put your hand in the cracker box and see that there’s nothing in there? I swear one time, I found 5 empty boxes/bags on my pantry shelf that just needed to be thrown away. AH! How hard is it to throw away the box?! (I love my kids) Here’s a solution for you! Take food out of the box and move it to a container/basket. Place snacks like granola bars, apple sauce squeezers, packaged crackers in a basket, and get rid of the box.
Place cookies/crackers in a container and again get rid of the box. Pour your cereal in a cereal dispenser and get rid of the box. The picture on the left is the “before” picture. Oh what a difference just by putting food in containers!
Place nuts/seeds/chocolate chips that’s in regular bags in these cute glass canisters!
Here, I took my iced tea keurig cups out of the box and stored them in these slanted jars.
This tip applies to drinks too!
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4. Think about location. Put kids’ food/snacks in a spot where it’s easily accessible. Us moms have to make our lives easier, so if the kids can grab food themselves the better! That’s why I put the kids’ snacks, cereal, chips, and bread on the bottom shelf. You can see in the picture below that I have medicine and breakables like glass bottles on the top shelf.
Even though these items are on the top shelf, I can still see and grab them easily since it’s on a lazy susan.
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5. Maximize your space with a better view. Before my pantry was organized and I would try to find something, it was just a big guessing game. Jars/cans/spices would all be in the same level, so all the tops would look the same. I’d pull one out, realize it wasn’t it, pull another one out, still wrong…you get the idea. I love the 3 tiered bamboo shelf, so now I can clearly see what’s on my shelves. It’s expandable too!
I also like this shelf pictured below that divides your shelf vertically since it maximizes the shelf space! There would be wasted space if all the cans were on one level. Since it’s in two levels now, items aren’t so crammed together making it easier to identify what’s on your shelf.
Having these wood stackable wine racks makes it a lot easier to see what you’re grabbing. Eye catching too!
Do you keep your garbage bags, ziplock bags, and foil/wrap in the pantry? In the image below, the left is my “before.” To better organize these items, I placed my garbage bags in one of the black and white striped bin and the ziplock bags/foil/wrap on this kitchen wrap organizer.
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6. Fill a basket or bin with the rest of your items. Pretty much if all else fails, put it in a basket! ha! Hey at least it’ll be prettier to look at 😉
Well, I hope those tips helped you! Organizing your pantry does take some time, so if you don’t have a couple hours to spend, do it on a different day!
Do you guys want to see a fun feature in the pantry? We have a grocery door in there! It’s a small little door off of the garage. When you’re in the garage, you open up that door and start pushing groceries through there. Then the kids would be inside the pantry unloading groceries.
