Kitchen Pantry Makeover, Tips, and Strategies

written & video by Shaina
shaina@freshenyourlife.com

Call me clean, call me organized, call me OCD but at the end of the day I’m human and live in a house with a hubby and 3 kids. This can leave our house sometimes looking not the way I want it. The most important thing to do is to have a firm foundation for organization because that makes it easier to maintain. Maintenance is the hardest part. We all set out to have a clean house but then life happens. One of the hardest rooms for our family to keep clean and organized is the pantry. There is a constant inflow and outflow, toddlers, dogs, and guest rummaging through it. Right when I have a system in place it goes back to chaos. I have contributed that to the fact that the shelving just plain sucks. It was installed by the builder, doesn’t offer maximum efficiency, and is just wide open wire shelving. With the help of my husband we designed our ideal pantry that will work best for our family. We also wanted some luxuries built in such as wine and beverage fridge, coffee bar, light up shelving for my husband’s beer glass collection, and space for our dog bowls.

Having previously worked with California closets we chose to go through them again. We had the designed drawn up and worked with Jenny’s husband Phil for quartz counter top for the coffee bar. There are eight things you want to keep in mind when organizing your pantry

Group like items together: keep canned good together, breakfast items, snacks, chips, baking in specific areas based on use and nutritional value. You don’t want the candy in direct eye sight or within kids reach.
FIFO: first in, first out. This will help you use food items that expire sooner first. There’s nothing like throwing away unopened food because it was in the back of your pantry.
Draw it out on paper: sketch or write where you want to put things. Imagine it, put it on paper and then look at it often. Does it still make sense? If not switching it on paper is easier than redoing your whole room.
Purchase accessories: Based off your design purchase items that will help organize the food. Bin for chips, container for flour, lazy Susan for oils, stand for canned goods, etc. This helps keep your stuff within easy reach and look more appealing to the eye.
Take note of your inventory: Do you have 100 water bottles like I do but only use 3? 10 cans of green beans but no corn? 5 open boxes of cereal that no one is eating? Be okay with donating what you don’t use to make room for other things.
You want what you see: we all have cravings, some have better self-control than others but if you are like me you want what you can see. If I see chocolate or cookies first I’m more likely to eat that than reach for a healthy alternative. Keep all the healthy food items at eye sight level. That includes your children’s eye sight. I always try to have healthy within reach snacks for them. I also try to keep all the junk in a box or container so that its even harder to see what is inside.
Unbox snacks: I like to pull oatmeal, granola bars, fruit leathers and such out of their boxes and into cute containers for a more eye appealing look and it also helps when condensing or combining when you don’t want to take up more space than needed.
Maximize space: Can’t afford to do a pantry make over? Maximize the space you have by buying baskets, containers, clips, even an over door shoe organizer can help! Small hacks can make a huge impact. My first house didn’t have a pantry, so I had to be super crafty with the little space we had.

Once you have your foundation set up try to maintain by teaching your children to clean as they go. I try my best to teach my children where things go so, they know where to put things back when they are done. If your pantry is organized, it will be easier to find things and put things back where they belong. Check out our You tube video to see how I transformed our pantry from disorganized chaos to sleek and functional.