the old barn

Pantry Design and Organization

January 5, 2020

The pantry is really having a moment. They are being showcased with beautiful antique doors, and some pantries are as elaborate as the kitchen itself. They range from a little cabinet space to a closet with shelves to small rooms. Some pantries even house the oven, toaster, microwave, and other small appliances.

I get asked about my pantry a lot, so I’ll share it here and tell you about the choices I made. Of course budget was/is always a factor and I did not want to spend big bucks in the pantry. However I did want to it serve me and my family well and, of course, look nice. As a designer, I don’t want anything that isn’t functional, but I also want everything to be aesthetically pleasing too. We put a beautiful old wooden door with clear glass entering the pantry. The clear glass means the inside of the pantry is visible from the kitchen. I like the feeling of “help yourself” the glass door gives (even though I wish my kids would help themselves a little less! Why didn’t I start that groceries fund years ago?!?)

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Ha! No knob! We still have a lot to do to finish this house.
We had the electricians use a jamb switch on the pantry door so the light would come on when the door is opened and off when the door is closed.

I believe any pantry can be beautiful with the right organization. I started off by taking stock of what I have to store in the pantry and also set aside items that I may try to home somewhere else if I needed to. For example, I decided to store the aprons and extra tissue boxes in a different place. I knew my flours and sugars would look great in their glass jars, so that’s where I started. Other things that you can put in glass canisters that you may not have thought of include rice, cereal, baking soda, pasta, dry beans, coconut flakes, nuts, and tea bags. Anything that didn’t make sense for me to put into glass jars, I put into labeled white bins or baskets to give the pantry a clean, organized, uniform look. All sources are linked below.

I am only 5′-0″ and so a handy step stool is necessary for me to reach upper shelves, plus it is helpful for the kids. The gray and white thing next to the stool is a vacuum called the Eyevac. It allows us to sweep crumbs and dust up to it and it sucks them right up…no need to get out a dust pan and bend down to try to manage the big broom while doing so. I love it that my 9 year old daughter can easily sweep up the kitchen or pantry herself if she makes a mess.

The canned goods are in a round basket sitting on a turntable in the corner. I love using turntables in corners so I don’t have to dig and shuffle things around. Boxes and bagged items are in baskets. For our family, we have 3 smaller baskets where each of our 3 kids keep their favorite lunch items and snacks. I used the labels to help me figure out how to group items in most cases. Because of our special diets (food allergies), I did order a few custom labels and I was so happy to find that the maker of these labels had a MATCHING option for that!

Sources:

Complimentary Pantry labels Set

Custom Pantry labels to match

Spice Jar labels to match

  1. Shawn Holmes says:

    Hello, I just came across your website. Your pantry is so nice! Can you tell me where you found the round basket that’s on the turntable?

    Thank You!

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