No better time than the kick-off of back-to-school season to share a recent pantry I product sourced, decluttered and organized. This is a large pantry, which I realize is not typical for most of us. But regardless of the pantry size you may have, I wanted to share my expert tips on how I approached this space. These ideas can be applied if you have a modest sized pantry or even a cabinet style pantry.

This mom of three older children reached out for help with their newly renovated pantry. They remodeled their entire interior, moving out of the house for a period of time. This is in her own words her “dream pantry”. I’d agree! Prior to this space expanding to this size, it was about 1/4 of the real estate it is now.

BEFORE

The pantry is an L-shape…

At the end of the pantry it turns to the left…

This pantry contains a variety of contents; baking ingredients, baking pans and sheet pans, small kitchen appliances, overflow large pots, their collection of vacuums, dog supplies, cleaning supplies, reusable shopping bags, back-stock spices and obvious food categories.

Her goals included organizing everything and decanting her spices and baking ingredients into OXO containers. She frequently cooks and has some spices in a kitchen drawer, but she needed the back-stock of those to live here and also OXO containers to hold her Daal’s and other ingredients.

TIPS

My number one tip in a pantry this size is creating zones. After getting a clear accounting of what was going to live in here AND taking every last measurement (which was many different depths and widths), I planned out the zones…which then gave me the info I needed to move forward with product sourcing. Product sourcing would have been exceptionally challenging without first considering zones. And it definitely wouldn’t have been successful without having all the measurements.

Zones are something I lean into when working in a garage. Same to be said here in this space. With an abundance of space like this, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and inevitably when we feel that way, it will become cluttered.

And of course, I wanted to make it airy and beautiful. This pantry is a beautiful space! I love the built-in counter and pegboard / cork board wall.

So again, creating zones can help break down a large space like this.

AFTER

Welcome to their newly organized dream pantry…

I’m in love with this outcome!

Let’s dig into the zones…

Starting on the left side, I sourced these great bins from Amazon to corral categories they reach for often. Snacks, breakfast smoothie ingredients, crackers and chips are all here on this wall. I added a couple lazy susan’s to hold vitamins and supplements they grab each day.

Under the counter I placed four beautiful fabric baskets, space planned their bakeware and there’s a shelf for the dog supplies…

On the right wall, the shelving is only 6″ deep. Instead of containing all the cans and jars in bins which made no sense, we instead zoned categories on each shelf. Tomato based items, canned meat, soups, pastas…each category sitting on its own shelf made a lot of sense to us.

Further down the wall I created a section for her Daal’s and other cooking ingredients using many OXO containers, which was her preferred containment for these…

The corner shelving in the back was the perfect spot to zone their small appliances, large pots, mixing bowls and I reserved the top shelf for lazy susan’s to hold their oils, vinegars and sauces. I did have to remove one shelf from this corner to make it come together but it worked out beautifully!…

The OXO containers are the shining star in here…with the exception of the beautiful pantry bones itself. I love seeing all of her amazing ingredients. You can see the label she chose. We went with clear as opposed to black ink on white…it felt very loud when we tested both labels side by side. I think clear is great!…

If you saw a few products you were interested in, you can find all of them linked here for easy shopping…

These have become some of my new favorites! The set of 4 lazy susan’s is a steal! You won’t find a lower price.

Hope you enjoyed seeing this incredible before and after. It was such a pleasure working with her and completing this project. We have a few small tasks remaining and will share an update when it’s 100% completed!

Back soon with more organizing fun!

xo,

Sam