Kitchen Pantry Organizing

I bought some plain, plastic bins for my pantry and labeled them (more for my hubby than M.). That way all the opened packages like beans and such have a place to go without getting spread out. They just kind of contain those messes a bit better for M.. I also use old juice bottles (the larger ones with handles) that have been cleaned and dried to store rice.

As far as the cabinets. Baby locks can be your best friend. If you don't want to drill holes in a rental property, try other things. Do you have cabinets where they can be secrured using those locks that look like zip ties? When my kids were little I had to keep them out of a built in cabinet in our living room. We did not want to drill holes in that thing, so I relied on painters tape. AS they got older I had to add more and get more creative. And at times, it looked really silly. But it did the trick. It kept them out and it worked with destroying the wood or finish.

Our tenants converted the closet to make a pantry at our property too. They invested in push lights at the dollar tree. They said it was a little difficult to see in the back. That helped them quite a bit. And they also put a dry erase board on the inside of the door. When they used up something they wrote it there, so they would know what was needed and not accidentally buy too much.

I suggest a shelf for kids stuff (formula, babyfood, snacks, etc), then a section that is just jars/bottles, a section for cans (stack duplicates on top of each other: I have rows of cream of chicken, cream of mushroom, chicken broth, rotel tomatoes where they're on top of each other and the cans that I only have 1 of go in front of those stacks so I can see everything pretty easily. A section that is just dry goods (all boxes) and a little bin for the skinny little packets: I use a rectangle glad leftovers type container that had lost its lid and that's where I have the onion soup mix, season packets, etc. For packages of things like pastas or whatever that would be open, I take scissors and snip it a little shorter (as needed) and roll the extra bit up and clip it with little clips you can buy 3 or 5 for $1 at Walmart or a dollar store. (Rubber bands work too if you are in a pinch and don't have clips). Keeping everything trimmed, rolled, and clipped keeps it tidy and easier to see. Baking or cooking stuff (flour, bakers joy, cooking spray, oils, etc) all go together in my pantry. I keep a running list of what's in my pantry, attached to the inside of the door, and mark it off or add it on as I go. I also have a list on my deep freezer. Just so much easier than digging around and making a mess of your pantry, and you know what you have and what you need to buy. Perhaps you could buy a set of canisters for the cabinets so you aren't keeping everything in the pantry? (I have 2 large canisters on my kitchen counter that store brown rice and cereal, and then I got a little 5 canister set from someone: cookies, flour, sugar, brown sugar, and white rice are in mine just because that's what works for M.). You can find canisters in all shapes/sizes for things like pasta or whatever if you want, and if they're neat, you can put them on your counter without them looking cluttered or trashy. Organizing it is actually the easy part (for M., at least). Not giving in to the temptation to just throw stuff back in there wherever they land is my hard part. But once it's organized, you have a "template" at least for where things go and how they'll fit.

Go to emergency essentials web site or peggylayton.net and look up the food storage books. There are a lot by Peggy Layton and she is this wonderful Home Ec person who actually know hows a family works and makes food storage a priority. She has some really good ideas aobut how to track what your family eats and how to go about storing the foods YOU eat. Filling a pantry will be pretty easy after reading her books.

I especially love this one. It is well written and gives good common sense on what to store and how. She has a while basement but gives lots of ideas for those who don't have much space at all.
http://peggylayton.net/index.php?app=ccp0&ns=prodshow...

Good luck. Food storage can make one feel very secure especially in times where weather is running rampant and out of control.

go to the dollar store and get some of the plastic little shoe box size bins to organize your packets in.....

I have a large pantry too. On thing I LOVE is I had my husband turn one of the wire shelves upside down (so the lip was up) and he installed it on a slant. All my canned goods roll down and I can see everything. It's really helpful. Something as silly as slanting a shelf can be so helpful so think out side the box. I ended up buying a bookcase and slanted the shelves for my shoes too. :)

I have a huge pantry, large enough to be a small baby nursery. It was one reason I was SOLD on this house when I saw the plans!!

I keep canned goods in 1 area like up much like the grocery stores. For bags of beans, brown sugar, etc, I keep clear shoe boxes or larger and put them in those to keep them in a good spot.

I group things together and organize such as snacks, crackers, bread, chips, spices are together, all drink mixes are together, Basically, I have it set up like a little grocery store.

The funny thing was when a repairman was here and he said... I am going to send my wife to your house to grocery shop! I keep a lot of stock for the rainy day.

My pantry and refridgeration units are as organized as they can be. I still don't know where things are.

What we have decided to do is a spreadsheet of what we have and where. Like the upstairs pantry is P1, there are four shelves that meet in the corner, so you have SL1-4 and SR1-4, one being the bottom. So under cereal we have one box of Captain Crunch, so the list would have Captain Crunch, 1, P1SL1.

After 25 years of trying to figure out a system this is the best I have come up with. The only problem would be "shrinkage" caused by children not using the computer. :p So I guess we will need weekly inventory. :(