Corralling the Clutter: Kitchen Pantry Ideas

In the fast pace of day-to-day living, a well-organized kitchen is a necessity. However, finding the time to design an efficient kitchen is another thing all together. Where to begin? The kitchen pantry is the best place to start. This kitchen element provides storage for groceries, spices, kitchen utensils and small appliances. The first thing you will want to do is to assess your cooking needs and the space you already have to store it.

To start with, you might remove all the items from the pantry and decide what really needs to be put back inside. Do any of the foods have expired dates? Are you storing rancid cooking oils? How about spices and herbs that have lost their flavor over time? If you said yes to any of the above, then these foods are the first to be eliminated from the pantry. Think about organizing your items by categories such as frequently used foods, baking ingredients, snack foods or condiments. Once you have purged the pantry, it's time to organize.

Here are some easy-to-do ideas for decluttering your pantry:

• The pantry door — One of the most overlooked potential places for storage in any room is the door. Look online or in specialty storage stores for a hanging door-mounted rack with shelves to store items of varying sizes. This will free up space for other items in the pantry.

• Shelve it —– If you have the room, look for under-the-shelf baskets that attach to the wooden shelves above them. This works well for using previously unclaimed storage space. Light items such as foils, wraps and plastic bags can find a home here.

• Bin there, done that — Bins that can be pulled out from shelves make it easy to go through items. Small items in bins are less likely to get lost in the pantry. You can organize your bins by category such as cereals, pasta, kid-friendly foods and snacks. Consider getting rid of cereal boxes altogether and just keeping the cereal in a bin. Why waste space?

• Things are looking up — If you can see space at the top of your pantry, you have another unclaimed storage area. While this area may not be easy to access, it makes for a suitable place to stockpile extra items such as oil, vinegar, cereal or seldom-used groceries.

• Floors — Another often-overlooked potential storage area is the pantry floor. Here you can store larger supplies such as soda bottles or rolls of paper towels. If you have the room, add stacking bins to hold items such as onions or potatoes.

• Walk-in pantry — If you have enough space, consider converting a nearby closet or small room in your home to a walk-in pantry. Typically, you will need a minimum space of 5 feet by 5 feet for a walk-in pantry. With this option, you have much more space to stock up on bulk items, store kitchen appliances to declutter countertops and even have room to store cleaning aids. This convenient option offers you the ability to see everything at a glance and to find things with ease.

Hopefully, you are sufficiently inspired to tackle the job of organizing your pantry no matter its size. These simple ideas will help all your family members save time so they can enjoy the things they really want to spend time doing. Contact us for more ideas on how to declutter and organize your kitchen.