Dearest DIY-ers, I am joining all the girls for Pinterventures 01.2020, the first Pinterventures post of the year. Erlene at My Pinterventures is our fearless leader for this monthly series, so please be sure to check out her blog…it is full of great recipes and craft ideas.
The purpose of this Pinterest Challenge is to motivate all the participants of this hop (and you too) to not just pin, but to make it happen! If you are like me, you pin with great abandon. And enthusiasm. But somewhere along the line my ambition dwindles off. Which translates into making the same tried and true meatloaf recipe over and over, month in and month out. Or buying my holiday decorations rather than making some cute, handmade crafts.
These Pinterventure posts ensure that I try at least one of the zillions of pins I’ve saved. The theme for this month’s Pinterventure challenge is about organization and storage, so I chose to share some easy pantry organization tips I found on…PINTEREST.
Just a reminder: Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After occasionally uses affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link provided I may receive a very small commission. Thank you for your support.
52 Weeks to an Organized Home
Remember how I said I was going to follow Taylor’s 52 Weeks To An Organized Home in my recent Currently post? Well, this girl is on FIRE! The first weeks of the year, Taylor’s had us organizing our kitchens. And I am proud to report that between juggling babies and helping Lauren, I have managed to stay on track with each week’s challenge. Here’s some of what I’ve done this month.
My Pinspiration
I have a Pinterest board called Spic and Span, you can check it out, here. It has over 250 pins and and more than 1,200 followers. To be honest, it is probably one of the boards whose pins I have actually implemented most.
In preparation for the 52 week challenge and this post, I began pinning lots of pretty pantries, and tips on how to make mine look that way.
Pin #1
First there was this pin from 52 Weeks to an Organized Home.
[source]
Pin #2
Then I came across a pin from Home Staging Blooming, Illinois of this picture perfect pantry.
[source]
I loved all of the organization that went into making this tiny pantry its most effective. My pantry is about 3 times the width of this space but not any deeper. And I have one closet-sized door by which to access the space that is on the far right rather than in the middle. So there are some dark, hard-to-reach areas on the far left side.
Pin #3
Finally, I came across this pin of 11 pantry organization ideas from Of Life and Lisa.
[source]
My pantry has always been pretty neat and well organized but the items that wind up getting stored in the obscure left corners are really hard to see and manage. I often wind up buying more ketchup because I can’t see that I already have 2 bottles waaaay back there.
And I tend to buy more pasta because I don’t look to see how much angel hair or spaghetti or lasagna I have. It’s so much trouble to open those boxes to see what’s in them. And they are on the hardest-to reach, tip-top shelf.
Same thing with canned goods. I keep buying cream of chicken soup because I am not sure how many (dozen) cans of the stuff I have.
One of our kitchen cabinets has been devoted to snacks. And here we are on Weight Watchers!! But most of the things are healthy(ish). However, bags of (baked) chips, nuts and beef jerky get all mixed up in there. We often wind up with 2 open bags of walnuts or pretzels.
Obviously, I needed a solution for these first world issues! Here’s what I put together from the pins above.
Easy Pantry Organization Tips
After I’d figured out what I needed, it was time to head to Amazon to find my solutions.
Solution #1
While I think a pantry filled with beautifully labeled, clear canisters of food is very neat and uniform…it isn’t practical for me. I know myself well to enough to be certain I am not going to want to dump fresh, new food into all those containers every time I start running low. Beside that, what if you fill up that pretty canister and still have cereal left in the box? Do you have to put the clear canister and the box on your pantry shelf?
Decided just to use this pantry organization tip just for my pasta. And not for crackers, cereal, chips, rice, etc. At least for now. Found these clear acrylic, air tight, locking containers on Amazon. Used the tall, narrow containers for lasagna and spaghetti. The stockier canisters for shaped pasta and noodles. Pasta problem solved. ✔️
Solution #2
What to do about those jars of pickles, multiple bottles of ketchup and cans of soup? I found this stackable can rack organizer. Each rack holds 36 average-sized cans. I bought 2 racks. Used one for all the cans of soup and vegetables, and the other for the jars that had been lurking in the depths of my pantry. I won’t be buying cream of chicken soup for months. Canned goods problem solved. ✔️
Solution #3
Snack rack. The second and third pinspiration pins both featured racks on the pantry doors. What a great use of space! Perused Amazon til I found this over-the-door, adjustable, pantry organizer rack. Now that’s a mouth full! And the perfect solution for our opened bags of chips. I can see what we have and what is already open. Used the bottom shelf for our collection of popcorn salts. Snack problem solved. ✔️
Bonus Tip
Where do you store your bread and buns? Did you know that bread goes stale about six times faster in the frig than at room temperature? [source] So I keep my loaves and buns in the pantry. But sometimes they get squished between the boxes of pasta and cans of soup! So, thanks to these under the shelf, hanging baskets, my bread stays fresh longer and looks more like bread!! Bye-bye moldy, squished buns. ✔️
The Big Picture
Now you’ve seen little bits of my pantry. Here’s the big picture.
This pantry organization is just a part of the whole kitchen organization and decluttering I have been doing this month. Love these results and so excited to be able to share here with you.
More Pinterventures
Hope you will take a few minutes to check out the pinterventures of some of the other bloggers linking up this month. And maybe even consider joining the challenge in February.
TO JOIN NEXT MONTH’S #PINTERESTCHALLENGE, CLICK HERE TO SIGN-UP ⇒ February Pinterest Challenge
For more Pinterest inspired projects from this month’s Pinterest Challenge hosts, check out the links below ↓
My Pinterventures • Domestic Deadline • Elle Marie Home
Cookies Coffee and Crafts • Across the Boulevard • Slices of Life
Teadoddles • Farm Girl Reformed • Purple Hues and Me
Decorate and More with Tip • Sew Crafty Crochet • Life Beyond Kitchen
Mom Home Guide • Intelligent Domestications • Lulu & Celeste
Love My Little Cottage • Eye Love Knots • My Family Thyme
Create with Cynthia • Once Upon a Time and Happily Ever After
Christine Faye Repurposed • Coastal Bohemian
Now, let’s see what the other hosts have created ⇓⇓
Your Turn
Are you or have you ever been a big Pinterest pinner? Do you pin without follow-through or do you pin only things you know you are going to try? I started out pinning only projects, recipes, crafts that I really thought I would do. But now – somehow – I have over 32,000 pins. Longevity runs in my family but we aren’t cats!! I think it would probably take more than 1 lifetime to sample all of the things I’ve pinned.
Pinning and Pinterest is fun to me. I don’t feel this incredible pressure that some seem to get from seeing all of these clever ideas. I just feel inspired! How about you?
Hugs and kisses,
The over the door rack is a great idea! I just organized my pantry, too. I didn’t even think of using one of those.
Beverly, this over the door rack has been a big help. I still have other snacks in the cabinet but somehow our chips always got mangled and half-empty bags got trampled by newer, more exciting bags of chips!!
That looks great! I just try to keep similar items together so I know where they are. We have a whole separate closet for snacks, which is helpful, but it does get messy!
We had a cabinet for snacks, too, and some are still there. But the chips always got trampled (broken) in the cabinet. And partially eaten bags sunk to the bottom of newer bags. So this is working for now.
Wow! And I thought that I was organized,
Thank you, Nancy!! I am sure you are!
You have done an excellent job! The pasta looks really nice in those canisters. My husband will not store bread in the pantry because he says he “forgets” about it. His solution? Store in on the counter top. Ugh. Just recently I got him to put it in the cupboard. He stores it with the plates. ?
Ha!! Had to chuckle at your husband wanting the bread on the counter top. My husband has a corner of kitchen counter for all of his stuff. I wish it could go elsewhere. He has phones – plural, headphones – plural, Chapsticks – plural and a host of other things that take up about a square foot of space. Not pretty!!
Leslie your pantry looks amazing. Everything has a place. I love how you added the storage on the back of the door. Great job!
Thank you so much, Terrie. The snack rack has been a big hit. And probably the reason why I can’t get my holiday 5 pounds back off.
That’s awesome you found some ways to organize your pantry that work for you and what you’re interested in “cleaning up.” I like the under the shelf rack for the bread. I don’t actually have a pantry like this, so it can be tough to find places for things.
-Lauren
I am thankful for my pantry. In my old house, “little house,” I had a tiny pantry about a foot wide!! Ha! I crammed all kinds of things in there but it was easy for things to get lost and never be seen again. Glad for this bigger one. And doing all of this reorganizing has given me more space.
That can organizer looks like something I need! We got rid of our pantry with our latest kitchen remodel… I know, crazy! But, we have a lot more cabinet space now and we got this HUGE corner lazy susan, which I honestly think is so much more efficient with space that we put mostly everything in it now… I do have our baking stuff and spices in a separate cabinet, though.
Carrie
curlycraftymom.cpom
I would love to see your lazy Susan. Is it on the counter or in a cabinet. If doing away with the pantry helped, then that’s a good thing. I have routinely cleaned and organized my kitchen but whatever I did differently this time, gave me more room. Hope I didn’t throw out something important.
I feel pretty disorganised after reading this! I also realise that I have far less food in my kitchen than you do! I have a feeling that I probably go shopping more often than you do – my stock supplies would be used up very much quicker than yours! When we had our new kitchen fitted about 4 years ago I was ashamed to find out of date cans and packets at the back of cupboards that had simply been forgotten about and have tried hard to cut back so things get eaten way before their use by dates. Even so, the cupboards are still nowhere near as tidy as yours!
I usually shop once a month. But that can lead to things going bad before I get them eaten! Especially produce. So I am shaking things up a bit, now that I am not working or going across the mountain every day to Cia sit. I am making a few stops a month for produce and ingredients for things I hadn’t planned to cook so hadn’t bought in the big shopping trip at the beginning of the month. Deb, I feel pretty certain you are very well organized! You would have to be to be able to mind your grandbabies as often as you do.
I said the exact same thing about all those pantries with the clear storage containers. I am not going to dump out flour, cereal, crackers, etc. into a storage container each time I grocery shop and I often buy supplies before we run out of things. You pantry looks great!
Exactly. Great minds, huh? Glad you feel the same way as I do about all of those cute plastic storage containers. Ain’t nobody got time!!
I’m lovin’ the snack rack!
Thank you, sweet! It has probably made the biggest difference. Thinking it will keep us from wasting things that would get pushed to the back of the cabinet in the past.
Wow, it looks awesome! And a snack rack, I need this for my son. My pantry is in need of some help, and these are great tips!
You sweet thing! I have loved our snack rack. And it has kept us from opening new bags of chips because the older, emptier bags somehow got buried. Now we can see what is open and what we have. I do have other snacks in the cabinet but chips were our biggest problem.
Your pantry looks great. That is a brilliant idea of how to organize the snacks in bags.
Thank you, my friend. The door rack on my pantry has made the biggest difference.
I love your ideas! We just use one of our closets for a pantry, and we hung a door shelf similar to your for extra storage. It’ comes in so handy and is always full!
Thank you so much for coming by!! Nice to meet you, new friend. We use a closet for our trash cans which baffles everyone but we have big, tall trash cans – don’t like emptying the trash much around here.
My pantry is small but mighty – ha! I am on the hunt for some baskets or bins to organize the top. Much as I don’t want to I may need to visit the container store to see what they have. I say “don’t want to” because I know it will be $$$!
I love having things organized and hate clutter so it will be worth it. Just haven’t found the right things in my usual haunts!
xo,
Kellyann
My BFF mentioned The Container Store, which, thankfully, I don’t think we have here!! So I had to opt for cheaper solutions. Of all the things I implemented, the rack on the door has been the best thing for reducing clutter. We had so many bags of chips and pretzels in half-eaten states, wrapped up and secured with rubber bands. Now I can the ones we have in my door rack and work on eating up the open ones before starting a new bag. A labor of love.
I am with you when it comes to all the clear containers for cereal and whatnot. I just ended having more stuff to find way to store. That’s been a hard pass for me as well. Something’s I totally can get behind, like these racks are brilliant. They can’t work for me at home but I think I am going to really think about it for the lake. Absolutely brilliant!
Thank you, Bo!! The racks on the door have been a big help already.
I have wondered the exact same thing about all those beautiful clear storage containers! What happens to the leftovers in the box? What if you buy the family size and it doesn’t fit? Who has all that extra time to transfer from the original container? Anyway, your pantry looks super organized! I love the solutions you found to help keep it tidy!
Thank you!! I don’t get those clear containers at all. I mean, mixing pasta – old spaghetti with new would be ok, but mixing types of cereal, eh, not so much.
Looks good, very neat! We store bread and buns in the freezer, doesn’t get stale and after it’s thawed for a while tastes very fresh.
I tend to store buns in the freezer because we never use a package up at one time. But hadn’t thought of keeping an extra loaf of bread in there. Thanks for the tip.
What a great pantry makeover! I actually have everything you mentioned in your pantry for organizing. Those canned goods rack is wonderful! I also added basket to mine since mine is tiny and deep.
Thank you!! Now to keep my pantry neat!
I like the under the shelf baskets for storing the bread. We tend to stack it at one end of the counter and it looks cluttered. Thanks for sharing your tips!
Thank you! I like the bread racks, too.
This looks great!
Thank you, new friend. Now to keep it neat like that!!
Hi Leslie,
You did a great job with your pantry! I have an under the shelf basket, and I love over the door storage, which I have in all our bedrooms. I need help with my craft area…..slowly but surely I hope to get it looking pretty enough to share one day…. I’m just too busy doing crafts! I love Pinterest!! I use it to find ideas, and then adjust them to create my own idea which is usually a combination or twist of everything I found on Pinterest. And I like the falling hearts but for some reason since I’m not used to them I keep thinking it’s a bug… : ) : )!!! Keeps me alert! : )
Liberty from B4andAfters.com
How strange, your comment just showed up today on my blog! I am so sorry to not have responded before now. Thank you for taking time to find my blog and leave a comment. I love Pinterest, too. I think a lot of people pin and forget but I really go back over my pins quite often. Going to stop by your blog now!
Wow, it looks great! I love a good organized pantry