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If you want to organize your pantry, you are at the right place.  I am sharing 40 days to Home Organization and today is Day 4:  Organize your Pantry:

organizing your pantry

  • First things first, take the refrigerator approach & start by taking things out. I like to just do one shelf at a time because of the huge mess that it makes.  I had my husband line our pantry shelves because everything was falling over:
  • Organize your pantry line shelvesThis makes the cleaning up even easier because I can just wipe everything down.   Once you have a shelf removed and clean, choose where you want things.
  • Put “like” items together.
  • You could get baskets for your items. My friend, Cheryl, has all of her “like” items together in baskets.
  • If you need extra space, add wire shelves. I love this one, from betterhomesandgardens for the bread shelves – they attached a wire shelf to the bottom to add a “shelf” for bread:

Organize your pantry

You could use it for foil, sandwich bags, etc… too!
wire shelves

Grab a few wire baskets to keep like items together.
shelves

It is also nice if you can put your items into glass jars (sugar, brown sugar…)   I loved this one that I saw on Pinterest.
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  • In our pantry, I keep snack foods on the second shelf. It is high enough that our toddler can not get them, but low enough that our 4 and 6 year old can reach them (after asking if they can have a snack). I like them to get it themselves, because they feel responsible.
  • I also keep our napkins on the lowest shelf (again- so that our kids can take care of their own needs, if they are simple needs that they can handle). I also keep our chore basket on the lowest shelf for our kids to be able to reach it.
  • I keep our medicine box on our top shelf. I use a big box and put all of our medicines in it. This includes everything that we do not use DAILY.
    Our Daily medicines: (Vitamins…) go in a little bowl beside the big box, so that we can reach them quickly each day, but they are out of reach for our children.  ** None of the kids can reach it, even if they get on a chair. Both places for medicine are COMPLETELY out of reach for our children!

CRAFT & SCHOOL AREA:
 In our pantry, I have 3 organizing hanging shelves (pictured below).   I use these to organize their school items (You can see how I keep them organized here).

In this over the door organizer, I put the pencils, erasers, etc… low, but I keep my items (dice, bingo spelling items, flash cards, erase-able writing strips) in the higher pockets.  A clear one would be better, but I liked the deal, so I just label each of the pockets with a piece of tape that I wrote on.
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This has worked out well for me!  Two of them are used for Arts/Crafts/kid magazines:
I got each of these for $1 each (check out how at this link)
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These have worked out wonderfully & they fit in our pantry!

I also have our play dough box in the pantry:
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I also “hide” our 4 and 6 year old’s sight word lists in there (easy for them to see, but since I add words weekly, it doesn’t stay too neat so I like to keep it out of sight.
Example: the white paper was put up this morning since the “wh” words seem to confuse our kids): They get a sticker when they master a word.
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I keep our aprons & cleaning things in there, too.  I just hang them up in there & it stays off the ground & easily accessible.
Organizing your pantry 005

I keep most of our spices by my oven, but here are my spices & packets that I do not use as often.   Organizing your pantry 006

I keep my cleaning supplies in my pantry, too, up high (away from the kids).  I hope that helped!

Which day of the series do you want to move onto next? Click here for the other posts…  If you want all of my organizing ideas in one book, check out my Freed From Clutter book.
FREED FROM CLUTTER - BECKY MANSFIELD

Hi there!

I’m Becky, a former elementary school teacher turned certified child development therapist and blogger. I work at home with my husband and together we are raising (and partially homeschooling) our four children in the Carolinas. I love diet coke, ice cream, and spending time with my family.

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11 Comments

  1. I love the under-the-shelf hanging wire baskets – such a space saver! Over the Christmas holidays I pulled our tea/coffee/hot chocolate supplies out to create a “beverage space” on the counter. It became such a joy for everyone who visited I’ve decided to leave it all year round. It reminds me of an activity “station” when we were homeschooling…

    Lovely posts – I’m headed to look at those before this one!

  2. Great tips! I love your chalkboard labels! I found you at Made by You Monday–thanks for sharing!

    ~Abby =)

  3. Great ideas! I love the sight words in a place your kids will see them often. Thanks so much for sharing! Have a wonderful day!

  4. So inspiring! I wish I had a pantry. My dream kitchen would have a pantry like this. Right now though, I have an upper cabinet and a lower cabinet for a makeshift pantry. Cans below, boxes up top. Kinda limited. 🙁

  5. Great tips! The only issue I have is where you put your daily meds. Having them above the oven isn’t really a good idea. That area of the kitchen gets pretty warm and ruins the effectiveness of your medication.

    1. So true- I need to update that. We moved them to the top of our pantry. 🙂 We noticed the motrin was a funny constancy, so we moved all of the medicine. 🙂

  6. what did your husband use to line the shelves?? I have the same problem w/ wire shelves.

    1. I just called him & he couldn’t answer (in a meeting for work) so I will keep you posted. I”ll see if he can do a mini-post for me laying out how to do it. 🙂

  7. Thank you for all the helpful ways to organize a pantry. Great ideas, but I like to keep cleaning supplies separate from the foods. ( I keep my cleaning supplies in the laundry room.) Keep up the good tips.