I am often called in to organize pantries.

Pantries are hard to KEEP organized because your families tastes, food choices and what’s on sale are ever changing. So, pantry organization is an area you cannot organize one day and then walk away.

It takes maintenance, purging and often a complete overhaul.

The first week I shared with you a standard pantry with wire shelves. Last week I showed a LARGE walk in pantry that was completed through my virtual services.

Today’s pantry is for those of you with build in wooden shelves in your pantry. I LOVE wooden shelves!

This client was not in love with her shelves. They were spaced too far apart and no matter how hard she tried, she could not find a way to best use the space.

This pantry had NO expired food to throw away. Many times just purging alone can give you more space. But in this pantry there was nothing to purge.

So the only option was to somehow access those pockets of space between the shelves. Enter…

my FAVORITE organizers. The shoe organizer to the right adds shelves – anywhere! Since I had the before pantry pictures emailed to me, I had already bought one shoe organizing shelving unit to match the pantry shelves.

I knew that the cans would fit perfectly!

While I was organizing I realized a second shoe organizer would be very helpful. I had an extra one in the car, but it was white and 24″ instead of 31″. The owner OK’d the addition and I kept on working…

This set of shelves was great for paper products, and pasta. Since the organizer was only 24″ it left a full foot of space on the right where I stored all the baking supplies. Since all the baking comes out when used, and it is not often used, it is OK that it is stacked in there!

Daily snacks were stored in a removable basket. Baskets are so great for those snacks that come in bags! A small lazy susan works perfectly to spin commonly used condiments.

A quick straightening of the top and bottom shelves and…

Since I had the pictures of the pantry and the measurements emailed to me I was able to plan this project and shop for the basket, lazy susan and shoe organizers before I arrived at the client’s home.

I spent 1.5 hours organizing the pantry which was .5 hours less than my estimate.

I have organized 5 food pantries in the past month.

The kitchen is the HUB of the home. It’s command central. And it is always being pillaged by the natives!

Here are the top 3 problems most kitchen pantry stockers face:

#1 Stocking the pantry {AKA getting the food to FIT and be used}

#2 Eating what you’ve actually bought

#3 Knowing what you need to replenish 

Enter client #1 BEFORE

First I emptied and cleaned the pantry.

We moved all the coffee, powdered drinks and tea in to a beverage cabinet {The whole kitchen redo will be coming soon}

Some food was thrown away.

The Kitchen Aid mixer found a new home too.

Next I divided the pantry into zones.

The first two shelves I organized using Clever Container’s Document Boxes (#0213, $18.95)

The upper shelf is for crackers, soups, lunch and dinner “sides”

You can see the shelf with the 2 blue document boxes holds crackers and Ramen soup.

The lower shelf is for breakfast foods.

The red document box on the lower left is for candy. Red means STOP think before you eat CANDY!

The last shelf I organized was the one that had all the packety things.

I decided to use Clever Container’s Bin Pull Fridge with Dividers (#0596, $29.95)

It was PERFECT!

By adding some small rectangle white baskets I was able to create 6 sections for packets that ALL stood up!

AND the bin pull acts like a pantry drawer! AWESOME!

Here is the complete after:

I was done in 2 hours. I have 4 more pantries to show you over the next 4 weeks. The next two were also completed in under two hours. One pantry was completed using my NEW Virtual organization services.

The last one… was a special design.

How is your pantry looking?