How I Organized The Pantry For $40
Today I’m going to share with you my REAL pantry, not a pretty well staged pantry, but one that’s organized for our family’s need. Once a year I gut the pantry, wash all the shelves, flip them over, throw out expired food and get it back in order again. It’s one of those spots that I hate to go into when it gets out of control with people that use the cram method. You know the ones that just find a place and cram it in rather than keep everything in a neat tidy row with other like things?
This is an inexpensive pantry redo and all the items came from Walmart. I purchased 12 – $2 mesh baskets, and 9 – 1/2 = $12 gallon Mason jars and that’s all it took to get things back on track. The biggest thing I like about the mesh baskets is they’re square with straight sides. The ones that are tapered (smaller at the bottom and larger at the top) to me are a waste of space. If they fit tightly together on the shelf I can fit more things into the pantry.
12 – $2 Mesh Baskets = $24
9 – 1/2 Gallon Mason Jars = $12
I’ve had a huge pantry in our basement for years also, it’s at least 4 times larger than the one in the kitchen but with all the teen boys grown and gone I no longer need all the food overflow. For those of you who didn’t know there were times, many times, we’d have my 2 boys and 6 of their friends living with us and let me tell you 8 teenage boys can eat a LOT. So now that they’ve grown and moved on I am trying to downsize and only use the main kitchen pantry for storage. We also live in the country and going to the grocery store isn’t something that happens on a daily basis, we go once a week and stock up.
One of the best parts about this pantry it the outlets. I can have all my small appliances in here and never have to have them cluttering up my countertops in the kitchen. I keep our seldom used appliances on the top shelf, but the stuff I use often remains in the middle where the outlets are. See those brown boxes on the right side of the pantry floor, those are my recycle bins. I’d love to find something different to use like maybe trash bins but once again the shape of them is wasted space. I did find square trash bins but at $65 each I decided to keep my boxes for now. Me and my bestie are heading to IKEA this week so maybe I’ll find something there that will work.
The easiest way for me to get the pantry all organized again is to take everything out, put it on the island, sort through things, get them all into their food specific bins again, and then add them back onto the shelves. I wanted to purchase new pretty canisters for my baking staples when I’m at IKEA but I thought to myself, that’s a stupid idea I just need to use the Mason jars I already have, why spend the extra money.
After it was all put back together again Hubby went in to get some drinks and said WOW that looks nice and I like not having to bend over to get what I want anymore. The whole project took just over an hour to do, and that included taking down all the shelves, giving them a good scrubbing, and putting them back. I’m happy with the results and it’s nice to know what I have again.
We have so much food in our pantry that this would never work for us. My husband, the cook in the family, always requires LOTS of canned items. bagged items, bottled items, etc. Your pantry looks pretty and well organized but ours will have to remain as is. LOL It’s sort of an ‘organized mess’.
Diane we don’t do many canned items in our house. We have our own meat in the freezer and we buy fresh fruit and veggies every week so that helps with keeping the pantry items to a minimum. Lucky you your hubby is the cook in the family, how nice.
IKEA does have square recycle bins. I purchased 2 there, although it was a couple of years ago.
Carolyn, I need them to be about 3 feet tall like the ones I have now. I go to the recycle center once a week but somehow we have a lot of recyclables.
I know what you mean Dawn, not to waste space. Our pantry is a closet with shelves in the kitchen and not much cabinets in our kitchen too. IKea can be a good store to find what you need.
Your pantry looks very nice and clean:). Washing down the shelves and pantry items makes it all look pretty neat!
Kathleen in Az
Kathleen I try and give it a good gutting and cleaning once a year and I have no idea how things get out of control in there over that year but they do. Now I just walk by, open the door, and admire it. LOL
Your pantry sure does look nice and organized. I also have a small pantry in the kitchen and a huge one in the basement. For the kitchen pantry, I put large rectangle bins , years ago. I have them labelled ” Baking Supplies “, Lunches, ” Quick meals “, Etc…I find it has saved me so much time. i love the idea of no bending over to grab things . Another 5 years , and we will also be down sizings.
Cheryl, It’s so nice to be done with the basement pantry. It took me 3 years to use up all the toilet paper stash I had, lol.
Dawn, your pantry looks great! I was just saying today that we needed to make a trip to Ikea to look at the organizers. Our closest one is in Charlotte, NC. When we go, we should meet Debbiedoo for lunch!
Jane that would be fun to meet Debbie 🙂 The closest IKEA to me is two hours away so we have to plan the trip and know exactly what we want. I’m heading there today, with all my dimensions. Hopefully I find what I’m looking for.