My Favorite Tips for Organizing a Deep Pantry Kitchens seem to be a very popular request for me lately, and I have been helping a few different folks plan out and organize their cabinets, pantries, and drawers. I have also been compiling a lot of the common questions and themes that have been arising, and hope to do a post in the near future outlining how to get started and tips for creating a solid kitchen storage plan.
But a similar subject worthy of its own post, and a question I receive almost more than any other, is what to do with a deep pantry closet? Or any deep cabinet really. They can be such dark and confusing places and definitely require a little extra thinking and planning.
One of the kitchens I was recently asked to help with, has a deep pantry closet very reminiscent of
our previous pantry. I vividly remember the days of frustration and trial and error and constant reorganization.
Around the time I was consulting on this project,
The Container Store had reached out to me to see if I would be interested in partnering with them on a kitchen organizing story. Talk about the stars aligning just right. Their supersized kitchen sale is going on now through the end of the month, which means the majority of their very best organizers are on sale for 25% off. If you are going to stock up on your favorite bins or tackle a kitchen organizing project, big or small, now is the time to do it!
I am definitely particular about the brands and sponsors I select to work with, and
The Container Store was a no-brainer for many reasons. I have used quite a few of their products around our home over the years, and have yet to be disappointed. In fact, I always feel quite the opposite, especially when I have the chance to use my all-time favorite organizer ever (mentioned
here,
here, and
here),
the Multi-Purpose bin.
The before and after photos of this project make my heart sing for a variety of reasons, but this post is much more than that. I really wanted to talk about my favorite tips for tackling a pantry, especially one that is on the deeper side.
So let's check out what the pantry looked like at the beginning of this story. Look familiar? In our area, there are so many homes built with similar style pantries; essentially a 2 ft x 2 ft closet with shelves. Is this a nationwide epidemic or just regional to the midwest?
Although these closets seem to be fairly common, how they are used will be different for everyone. This particular closet is used by a husband and a wife, kids have all grown up and moved out, and they now have seven grandkids who love to stop by with their parents for a visit.
Their storage needs vary from week-to-week. They will buy in bulk if there are sales, they enjoy hosting during the holidays, and also like to have foods and snacks on hand for their visitors and grandbabies. It is also worth mentioning that they have alternative storage in their kitchen carved out for additional pantry items such as spices, oils, and baking supplies.
T I P N U M B E R O N E
Begin with a
stocked pantry. Do your grocery shopping for a typical week, and then take note of additional items you may purchase frequently and even some that may only be on rotation on occasion. Compile a list of everything you would like to be sure is accounted for in your pantry project.
T I P N U M B E R T W O
Completely clear out the pantry and any other cabinets in your kitchen that contain food items that probably
should be in your pantry. Discard any items that are expired, and categorize the remainder into groupings of "like" items.
T I P N U M B E R T H R E E
Measure and create a plan! I tend to take this part pretty seriously, and I generally tackle these types of projects with the following goals:
- Maximize the available space
- Store the categorized items based on their frequency of use
- Select products with longevity (this means that it will last many years either in the current space or is versatile enough to be reused in a variety of ways down the road)
You have seen quite a few of my closet plans in the past; here is the one I had dreamed up for this specific pantry:
As with any project, the end result evolved a bit as I began ordering and installing and doing some final assessments. But as you can see above, the plans included drawers, door storage, bins to take up both the width and the height, as well as some room for change and growth.
To come up with the closet plans I measured the width and depth of every shelf. They had already installed the shelving with ledger boards and wanted to work with what they had if possible. In these types of closets, adjustable shelving may add a bit more versatility, but it definitely is not necessary. From there, I sourced the products that I thought would make the best use of the shelves from top to bottom and front to back.
While planning, I looked at all of the items that they currently had stored in their pantry, and also considered how they ultimately wanted the pantry to function. Could we maximize the floor to ceiling shelves and add a door unit, therefore freeing up additional cabinets in their kitchen for other things? You bet!
T I P N U M B E R F O U R
Let's talk about the beautification process. This is NOT a necessary step, but it is something that I like to do. It doesn't make the closet more effective to paint it or paper it, but it does bring a little bit of joy and happiness and can even act as a bit of a motivator to maintain it. I will never tell you that have to install wallpaper and create labels from fancy vinyl lettering if that is not your thing. Those are just the details that I personally enjoy, and that many of my friends and clients also appreciate in the work that I offer (some people like to decorate rooms, I like to decorate hard working cabinets and closets).
My plan recommended removing the bottom shelf of the closet, so because we were going to patch and touch up paint anyway, I decided to paint the entire interior of the closet the same color as the adjoining kitchen walls with some of their leftover paint.
Once it was dry, I also added a peel-and-stick wallpaper between each of the ledger boards for some additional
wow. The paper is temporary and removes just as easily and quickly as it went in (no residue or commitment necessary).
As things were coming together, the pantry owner walked by, caught a glimpse, let out a happy shriek and clapped her hands. This is 100% what it is all about for me. I almost cried seeing how happy she was with her new closet coming together.
T I P N U M B E R F I V E
If you take anything away from this post, it is to add drawers whenever possible. Drawers will take advantage of the area from front to back, and naturally bring the items from the back forward for you (vs. you needing to move things or reach over things). I added drawers to this pantry in a couple of ways; you can be as literal or creative about it as necessary. I do consider some types of bins as drawers, they can serve the same function and bring items from the back, forward.
The most impactful set of drawers was added at the bottom of the closet via
a narrow elfa drawer unit. Originally, the closet had a single shelf and the floor to hold the items in this area, but now there are five nicely sized drawers, as well as a spot for a step-stool, a place to store grocery sacks, and even a little room to grow! Hello increased functionality
and storage! For this particular elfa combination, I picked two of the
narrow 2-runner drawers, three of the
narrow 1-runner drawers, then added a
narrow white melamine topper.
Bag holder is a medium Multi-Purpose bin affixed to the closet wall with screws.
Closets like this can be tricky in terms of drawers because there are a few inches of recessed shelving area on either side of the door, and finding ways to not lose that space requires a little extra thinking. Although I knew we were already gaining storage by adding the elfa drawers, which are slim enough to pull through the narrow door opening, I was even happier that we were still able to add a little extra function on the one side of the drawer unit as well.
I was going to wait until a little later in the post to show how amazing these drawers are, but since we are on the topic, let's take a closer look inside of each one. This elfa combination is small but mighty and comes in at just 21" deep, 14" wide and 29" tall. Looking at those dimensions I was wondering if it really could store as much as I planned and hoped, and it certainly surprised us all.
The top drawer was created just for the grandkids. The homeowner mentioned that her grandkids will come over and know right where to look in the fridge for drinks and snacks, and she really wanted to duplicate that concept in the pantry.
The elfa drawers are easily organized with
fitted and divided clear trays, so I added them to the top two drawers to do just that. Very convenient! I am pretty sure the snack drawer was the homeowner's favorite, her reaction was priceless!
The next drawer was one of my personal favs, just because I love quick and easy entertaining that also feels a bit special. I always recommend putting together a small spot in your kitchen to store some basics such as napkins, candles, dishes, party decor, notecards, etc...
These slim drawers are also nicely sized for food storage bags and wraps.
While a deeper drawer conceals large bags of popcorn and chips.
Last but not least, the bottom drawer now holds their produce, which was previously being stored in some buckets on the floor. I lined the drawer with a couple of basic bins to catch any juices or onion flaking.
Quick Tip: Anytime I post about storing veggies, I do caution that keeping onions and potatoes together may increase their spoiling time. If you are only purchasing what you need for a week or two of meal planning, they are probably fine to be stored together (we have done this for years and never had any issues). But if you want to keep your potatoes for longer periods of time, they can be stored inside of an open box or paper bag in a cool, dark place (away from the onions).
Moving along...
As I mentioned above, I also used a few bins as drawers; specifically,
these small clear Linus Handled Bins for a shorter shelf and my favorite
Multi-Use helpers for some lighter weight cracker, snack, and pouch wrangling.
Previously, there was no finding anything on the back of that shorter shelf without moving a variety of items out of the way first, but now the bins easily bring the smaller items out of hiding.
Quick Tip: Most often times product packaging and boxes can create added bulk in your pantry, and you may find that quickly removing the box and storing the contents in a bin or drawer will give you twice the space. I like to keep a small vessel of clips in our pantry so we can remove crackers and cereal from the boxes and clip them closed to keep them fresh between uses. There are times when boxes may actually Tetris stack nicely, but I encourage you to give it a try. You just may be surprised about the space you gain.
T I P N U M B E R S I X
Tier your storage and your shelves!
In the initial plans, I included a shelf/tier of some sort for the back of the shelf that held all of their canisters and containers, but once we cleaned everything out, that wasn't exactly necessary. I still placed the taller items near the back, and the shorter items in front, but there was enough space left to create a path that would allow some easier access to all of the boxes and containers with little disruption to the setup.
Quick Tip: Place your everyday food and containers near the front, and store your overflow items near the back. In this case, extra boxes of cereal are placed behind the cereal containers, and extra boxes of grains and noodles were stored behind the pasta/rice section in another Multi-Purpose bin.
This closet was installed with a few full-length shelves throughout, as well as a couple of shorter shelves that were set further back. I appreciated this so much because it added an additional row of storage without impacting the overall accessibility of the other items in the closet (especially when the drawer-like bins were added).
T I P N U M B E R S E V E N
Maximize that vertical space and use the door or walls of the closet.
Although the door and walls are narrow, it doesn't mean some narrow baskets or shelves can't be added to increase the usable storage area. I initially considered spice racks on the recessed areas of the walls, but with all of the storage we were able to add to the door, we didn't end up needing the spice racks after all.
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