Pantry Reorganization

I am lucky to have plenty of cabinets in my kitchen and a nice sized pantry.  I’ve been wanting to make better use of my pantry space, so this week I took advantage of my days off to take time to do a little pantry organization.

I admire bloggers who stencil their pantry walls or make tags to label bins in their pantry but I didn’t have that much energy or motivation. 

Our pantry was a breakfast nook in our old kitchen.  We never sat there and it was a waste of space.  Here’s a picture from spring of 2004:

Now the pantry is behind the white door, a much better use of space.

 

The before really wasn’t horribly messy.  What I didn’t like was that I had many things in piles:  piles of roasting pans, piles of platters, piles of chip and dip servers, and piles of rolling pins.  Also, the floor of the pantry had become a dumping ground.

I found this space very difficult to photograph. 

 

 

My solution to the pile of platters and pans was to buy vertical pan holders from Lowes.  They are made out of metal and are designed to hold cookie sheets.  They worked perfectly and now I can see what choices I have instead of rummaging through a pile when I need to serve something.

 

My rolling pins and Rolpat pastry sheet fit into these dividers, too.  (The rolling pin on top was Granny’s.  She protected it with a sock and kept it in the bag that you see.  I would like to lose the bag but since she kept it in the bag, I can’t bear to throw it out.)

 

Our medication used to be in four plastic baskets along this shelf.  What a waste of space!  Why display medicine that is only used on occasion?  I transferred it to these very old tins, all of which were Granny’s.  The basket on the right hold grilling tools.  They used to be on the top shelf in a pile along with skewers.  Poor Mr. SP nearly had his eye poked out on more than one occasion while struggling to find his tools in our old pile.  Now they are at his fingertips.

 

These canisters hold flour, sugar, powdered sugar, brown sugar, and chocolate chips.  I’m the only cook, so there’s no need to label them.

 

The bread box with the Ivy motif holds colored sugars and other cookie making supplies.  Can you believe that huge container is mostly full of colored sugar?  The peanut jar to the right of the bread box holds cupcake liners. 

 

Another bread box is used to hold wine.  I should give the majority of these bottles away.  People bring them over as a hostess gift and then they become a pantry decoration.  I keep my plastic bag overflow in another tin.  Baskets hold bread and candy.  (Mostly candy…)  The blue bins to the right are for paper and can recycling.  The rest of the recycling is stored in the basement.

 

One space organized, 50 million to go.