Pantry Revisited

Since I first organized our hallway pantry and shared it here on a blog a year and a half ago, it's become my most-visited post of all time! Thus, I thought it was high time to share a few tweaks I've made to make the space even more functional for us.

When we last left off, our hall closet was a sort of pantry/linen closet, with food occupying the middle shelves, and extra sheets, towels, & our vacuum cleaner occupying the upper & lower spots.

However, once we added a chrome shelf to our laundry room to create more storage, I had plenty of space to stash the linens 'n things (ha ha!) in there, opening up a ton of space in our pantry. Since we buy our basics like cereal, crackers, rice, canned veggies, and pasta in bulk from Costco, new pantry space = great and much-needed!

So here's what the space has evolved into since making those changes:

Let's zoom in a bit, starting on the left side.

The top left shelf is home to our pasta. We buy in bulk from Costco because pasta is a quick and easy side dish, and Ryan is sort of a spaghetti addict.

The second shelf has more of our snack foods--crackers, cookies, dried fruits, etc.

Just below that I stashed our rice, granola, nuts, & candy, along with these "Spice" and "Flour" cannisters I got during one of my first trips to the Missoula Goodwill way back when. They were $1.99 apiece. 

I stash brownie mixes (from Costco) in the "Flour" cannister and extra spices in the "Spice" one (go figure!)

Below that third shelf is a pretty large open space that I always struggled to fill in an effective way. These stackable baskets from Target did the trick. They're sturdy and don't wiggle around like some stackable bins tend to do. I keep chips & dip-making stuff in the top basket, cheez-its and goldfish packs in the one below, potatoes/pantry veggies in the third from the top, and pasta sauce in the bottommost basket.

And now the right side:

I added a wire shelf to create a little extra space here and take advantage of the height of the pantry. This is our little "breakfast nook" which holds cereals, Ryan's breakfast drinks & poptarts, plus some fruit strips. Once I am reunited with my Silhouette machine (it's back in MO) I plan on making cutie vinyl labels for these containers, similar to Jen's.

You know I'm a sucker for vintage storage (especially if it has fun graphics) so I liked using my two vintage cheese boxes here. They're the perfect size to hold the tarts & drink packets. The oil-rubbed bronze basket is from Target's Dollar Spot.

I love how the graphic even peeks out when you look at the other side!

I placed a faux-vintage crate (one of Threshold's lovely containers from Target) just below the breakfast area.

The crate houses overflow food items that don't fit elsewhere.

Below that is my little baking corner. I got rid of my kitchen cannisters a bit ago to free up counter space, and my sugar, flour, chocolate chips and such look great in the Oxo containers and are just as accessible here.

On the shelf below, smaller versions of the blue stackable baskets sit atop a shoe rack from Target.

The baskets hold baking mixes, sauces, and overflow K-Cups that didn't fit in my new coffee corner.

The lower shelves of the shoe rack house all our canned goods. There was just enough room under the bottom of the rack to slide in one of the K-Cup storage drawers that used to be out in the kitchen. There wasn't enough room for two of them side-by-side, but that's alright--as you can see I stashed some overflow food there (Costco Cheez-Its, how I love thee!)

Oh, and for those wondering, all of the labels are from Better Homes & Gardens, and I got most of my Oxo containers over time from Ross and TJ Maxx. I also got a set at Costco a while back, and now my Costco has a larger set in stock for $47.99--maybe check your store to see if they have them as well?

Of course someday I hope to have an awesome walk-in pantry with built-in storage (like this one, or this one), but for now this space totally works for us!