5 Tips for Organizing a Small Pantry
I’ve been waiting a long time to tackle this project. The main reason I hadn’t gotten to it sooner was two parts. One, containers always seem to be expensive, and two, I didn’t fully believe that when people switch all their food to alternate containers that it actually saved space. But I still wanted to see for myself out of pure curiosity. So I found some affordable containers off Amazon just to test the waters. They were a game changer! And then immediately afterwards, I was hooked and wanted to finish the rest of the pantry.
I ended up buying a couple different items off Amazon to see what worked best, and here is the final shopping list:
However, I can understand that not every pantry is the same. So I wanted to include some strategies I realized were helpful along the way
Stackable Containers
These were the big ticket that overall made the biggest difference. I would say if you are interested in organizing your pantry but don’t know what to get or don’t want to spend a lot of money, this is a great place to start.
Variety of Sizes and Functions
After getting all my spices, baking and cooking ingredients into designated stackable containers, I started in on the snacks, cereals, pastas, and other similar items. This took some troubleshooting as I wasn’t sure what would work best. I ended up making a list of items I had left that needed a storage solution along with the ounces for each item. Ultimately, the lazy susans helped to make some of the liquid items more easily accessible, and the larger containers worked great for some of those grains I buy in bulk.
Adding Hanging Shelves
Another wonderful solution as shelf heights vary from pantry to pantry. Our pantry is no different and taking advantage of every volumetric foot is essential to smaller pantries. I love that it just adds some character to the space as well. Also, I can move these around depending on the grocery load from month to month.
Clear Containers
I wasn’t sure how I felt about the clear acrylic containers because I like the idea of a “less busy” space since I’m going through this whole trouble to organize everything. But after trying out some very lovely baskets, I preferred the clear acrylic containers because I can see what’s inside of them. And with our family constantly in a rush to stuff our faces, we need to know where the white cheddar Cheetos are—we just gotta!
Don’t forget to label everything — (expiration dates don’t hurt to throw on there too)
This may be a given, buuuuut the last thing you want is to accidentally add the wrong ingredient to a meal, or to use an ingredient that’s expired. Just wanted to make sure that we’re all on the same page that labels are a requirement for this project.
Overall, I’m so pleased with how this turned out and now I just want to continue to slowly makeover our teeny tiny pantry.