Pantry Organization – Take 2

Written by on in Inside Projects

I think anyone who has been to my house on a regular basis will tell you I am a grocery hoarder.  I have lots of groceries in my house – and my pantries (yes I said pantries) are out of control.

I generally have to tear them apart and put them back together a few times a year.

The hot mess below is my kitchen pantry – before I cleaned it up.

Pantry Organization Tips

I was running a system where I put ONE of something in my kitchen pantry, and the rest in the storeroom pantry under the stairs.  Here’s the problem, I always forgot to look in the storeroom before I bought more.  I ended up with 4 boxes of Special-K and thought – “Enough is enough….time to change!”

So yesterday I tore them both apart and wiped down the shelves.  Here is how I got organized:

  1. I wrote out a list of what I use nearly every day, and what I don’t touch as often.
  2. Then I decided, on paper, what would go where.  I didn’t draw a map, I’m not that OCD
  3. I then divided the stuff I use pretty often into “every day” and “once a week or so”
  4. I did the same lists for things I don’t use very often for the storeroom.
  5. I also noted things the kids needed to find and get a hold of.  My kids are older but having their things front and center save me from having to come from all the way across the house to show them where the granola bars are.  If you have LITTLE kids, sometimes a label or a color coded system will work well.  You can say “You can have ONE snack from the pink basket.”  Then you know what they have to pick from without having to go and get the snack out for them every time.
  6. Then I got to work.
  7. I brought in a folding table from the garage and loaded everything in one pantry on the counters and table
  8. Then I put back what I WANTED in the kitchen pantry – moved everything I wanted in the store room to the counters and unloaded the storeroom under the stairs and put all of that away, organizing the storeroom as I went.

Here is a before and after of the kitchen pantry:

Kitchen Pantry Organization Tips

I guess in the photo it doesn’t look nearly as organized as it does in person.  After all, that IS a lot of food 🙂

Here’s the storeroom before and after:

Storeroom Pantry Organization Tips

This one is definitely a lot better.  The canned food is ALL together here and easy to get into and through.

Dont put off organizing your food.  Its a great way to keep on top of what you have, what is old and what is new, and what boxes are empty.  I filled a black trash bag with empty cracker, cereal and granola bar boxes…it was ridiculous.