Pantry Organization

It’s that time of year where we take stock of our homes, bodies and life.. well at least I do. When I looked around there is so much to be grateful for but my home was driving me crazy with mess (and to be honest it still is but it’s a work in progress). Last week I spent a good amount of time going back through my pantry and working on kitchen drawers to reduce and reorganize to start the year strong.

This is our before and no it’s not horrible but I had started just throwing things in and hoping that it wouldn’t all fall on me when I opened it back up the next time we needed some snacks. First I love my OXO Pop Containers but I added to my collection at different times so they all had different labels. I have tried budget labels and kicked myself when they started to peel just a few weeks later, since then I have stuck with Avery Labels or these from The Container Store that I used here. Also while you are grabbing these great containers go ahead and grab a few of these inexpensive clear scoops, they are awesome to throw in your highly used items (think flour, sugar, oats) since they are 1/2 cup they have worked wonderful when my daughter is helping in the kitchen because they fit perfectly in the container.

The next area I had to tackle one again was the snack area. Although we’ve had this divided spinning lazy susan for awhile now our bins of snacks had been getting a little overloaded with stuff that the kids didn’t like or my hubby had just thrown in there. If you have not tried this lazy Susan for snacks though it saves SO MUCH ROOM. TRM FB Tribe has been loving this hack and I get giddy happy every time you post that this has been a lifesaver! The clear bins hold bigger snacks well like our popcorn and veggie straws- good space saving tip stack them in one up one down and you can fit more since you are then making the tops and bottoms of the bag even.

Now maybe you don’t have this many snacks (lucky you lol) these clear bins are also amazing for storing k-cups where you can see what you have. Most regular sized k-cup boxes hold 12 pods so this bin ends up holding 4 boxes (4 deep and can hold 3 high = 12 pods) so if you like a lot of different flavors this can really help you see what you might be running low on.

The next area that was out of control were the clear bins I had on the top shelf of my pantry. These hold a lot of our cookie cutters and holiday cookie supplies so as you can guess over the holidays they became a total hot mess. First problem was that they were in different brand containers that really did not stack well. What ended up working AMAZING are these clear shoe boxes… yeah not just for shoes my friend! These are designed to stack on top of each other and since I no longer have white tops on these bins the light from the top of the pantry shines down through these a bit better. What really sold me on re-doing these is how inexpensive these stacking shoe boxes are! They cost $1.99 each or if you buy a pack of 5 you get 20% off making 5 of them $7.95 so even with the labels this whole project cost under $10!

Now I almost didn’t show this because after I took the pic I thought dang we have a lot of chips but you know what oh well -this is real life and we like our chips and guac! Also keep in mind in our marriage my husband does the grocery shopping so sometimes he comes home with questionable choices but I’m totally not willing to take back over that household chore! Back to the pantry- these wide and shallow bins help keep these big bags in order and the labels are general but do help my family keep things in approximately the same place week after week so I know what we have.

I will say there are a lot of options when it comes to this style bin but hard to figure out this exact one that is deep and wide. Ours are 8″ wide and 16″ deep which is typical for a pantry depth with a little bit of overhang (which does not bother me!)