Pantry Organization

I'm running out of things to do during quarantine so over the weekend I decided to re-organize my pantry. It seems like I re-organize this space every few months. It somehow manages to turn into a big mess frequently even though I have always had a lot of containers in an attempt to keep it organized. This time I pulled everything off the shelves and decided to really think through the best way to organize all of our food.

I was inspired after watching Rachel Parcell do an IGTV tour of her pantry and how she keeps it organized. Her pantry is stunning and everything sitting out in her pantry is monochromatic, even her food, so it looks beautiful. While that may be practical for her, it isn't for me. My food is going to sit out on the shelves so you will see my Rice-a-Roni boxes, pop tarts, and canned goods. However, that doesn't mean I can't make my space look nice too. When we were building our home, our pantry was one of the things I was the most excited about. I was excited to have drawers and shelves and a lot of space for all the things. However, I've never just loved how I've had it all set up. Since I have a lot of time on my hands, I was motivated to make it look like I wanted and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! I shared video of it on my Instagram Stories and had a lot of people asking for sources of where I got things so I thought it would be easier to just write a post on it.

When we moved into our home, my Mom went to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought me a lot of these clear bins as a nice Welcome Home gift! I have loved being able to store my food in these big bins. I organize everything into categories (rice/pasta | muffin mixes | crackers | nuts) and arranged the bins in a way to where I could see everything in them. A great space saver is to take halfway eaten foods out of the box. You can see I have a half used bag of cheerios, cookies, and a few pop tarts all out of the box. It's a major space saver and keeps your pantry looking a little cleaner too.

My favorite thing I did to re-organize was put all of my "extras" on the big lazy susan on the bottom shelf. Extra salsa, olive oil, bbq sauce, etc. Previously, I had put my extras in a clear bin on the top of my pantry and I always forgot it was there. Seeing it low on the shelves and on a lazy susan means I can't miss it. Another thing I have recently done in the last month is put all of our chip bags in a big basket on the floor. Chips take up a lot of space and I've never had a good spot for them. I was unloading a couple of big bags of chips from Sams a few weeks ago and threw them in that basket just to get them out of my way when I realized that basket is actually the perfect way to store bags of chips.

One take-away I had from Rachel Parcel was to use vintage crates to store bread. I LOVED that idea! I have always loved vintage crates but have never known what to do with them other than use them as a photo prop (haha!). This is the perfect way to store bread and I love enjoying these fun vintage crates from my favorite local antique mall, Somewhere In Time. I store our bread and tortillas in here and it's like these crates were made for it! I have always had a fruit bowl on the bottom shelf of our pantry for the boys to easily access. I decided I would also let them have access to some snacks on the bottom shelf too. I purposely chose snacks that aren't their favorite so they won't go crazy and ravish them. They like pretzels and fruit snacks good enough but not as much as something like cookies or cheez-it's. If they're super hungry and want a snack they can help themselves to some fruit or pretzels but if they're just being snacky and want a tasty treat, they have to ask me to get it for them off the top shelf of the pantry.

The other side of my pantry houses the high chair and a lot of bins that hold things like school art, lunch boxes, shopping bags, and paper goods. It isn't worth photographing (ha!) but that side is always pretty organized since everything gets thrown in a bin. Overall this space feels so much better and I'm able to see everything a lot easier. I'm going to link everything below for anyone who is in the mood to organize during quarantine!

Clear Bins (I have all different sizes) | Clear Packet Organizer (perfect for taco seasoning, etc) |
Clear Lazy Susan (I use this for spices etc) | Large Lazy Susan (what I use for my extras) | Clear Cookie Jars | Food Storage Container (I use this size for cookies/crackers) | Food Storage Container (I use this size for cereal) | Food Storage Container (I use this for spaghetti) | Food Storage Container (I use this for a lot of different things. It's the smallest size I have but perfect for nuts, cookies, etc).  | Chip Basket