Thursday, October 17, 2013

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 17~ Pantry Perfection

Ok...so maybe a pantry can't be perfect but I can dream. I would love to have a walk in pantry with everything stored in matching containers but that is not what I have...one can dream though. I am glad that we have a large closet pantry off the kitchen so I don't need to use my kitchen cabinets for food storage. I like to put like items together. The top shelf that is too high to reach daily stores the extra flours and stocked things we don't need as often. The next shelf stores Cereals, then crackers, then things like jello and pudding mixes. I put all of the baking supplies on the next shelf from dried fruits to chocolate chips and extra spices that can't fit in the spice cabinet. Canned vegetables and pastas make up the bottom two shelves. Snacks get stored on a small wire shelving unit to the side. I like to keep things sorted from larger boxes to smaller with some part of the label showing so we know what it is. I read an article in a magazine once about organizing a pantry and they suggested having 7 buckets, one for each day of the week on the shelves. After planning your menu and doing the shopping you put the ingredients for each nights dinner in the appropriate box. Sounds like a really clever idea but it hasn't been feasible for us to try right now. 

3 comments:

Unknown said...

With just the 2 of us, I don't keep nearly as much food stuff on hand so even though I have a large pantry (I just caught a typo. It originally said "panty". Having a large panty is a whole 'nother topic!) but only use 2 shelves for food stuff... one for "already open" and one for "not yet open". I sure could have used your organizational tips for this when the kids were still living at home!

Zion said...

I don't think I would ever be able to keep up with that (the meal ingredients in one category), but the rest sounds totally doable!

Jodi-Marie said...

You are too funny Joanne! Natalie- I you are right about keeping up with the meal buckets- I think that would even drive this OCD person nuts. You never know what ideas you come across though. I think the originator of that idea was also trying to teach her kids how to make dinner.