I’m about to get a walk in pantry!! One of the things I’m most excited about for our new house is a pantry with more space. We were in need of more space overall, but especially when it came to food storage. I’ve maxed out our current pantry on organization, so I’m looking forward to having more room for items, and also having more space that the boys can easily access to get their own meals. The following is both what I currently use and what I will be buying new and more of:
The two things I keep in mind with any pantry storage are:
- How well does it seal?
- How easy is it to clean?
Living in our area with mild winters, hot summers, and quite a bit of rain, ants can be a big issue, so we work hard to avoid them finding their way in to our food.
The big and small wire baskets are for storage of non food items like paper plates, napkins, cupcake liners, lunchboxes, etc.
All of my flour and sugar are stored in tightly sealed rectangle containers.
A big investment I’m making is cereal containers. This is to help prevent spills when the boys pour their own cereal, and also to prevent food from getting outside the bag and into just the cardboard container.
A lazy Susan for unopened ketchup, barbecue, and other sauces.
Labels! These are helpful to not only keep things organized, but also direct the boys towards items.
These three drawer containers are my favorite for storing snacks, breads, and tortillas.
Plastic wicker bins from Target for sorting foods into groups. We use them for separating pasta, rice, oats, and crackers. I read this blog post on having a dinner prep basket, which I think is a genius idea, so I’m definitely going to create that as well.
A handheld vacuum. One of the things I added was an electrical outlet in the pantry, specifically to plug in our handheld vacuum. This is great for cleaning up quick messes and we have the boys use it on their table chairs to prevent tons of crumbs from building up.
I like the old school soda holders for storing cans and I separate them out by tomato products, veggies, beans, and fruits.
A container or two for granola mixes that the boys can easily access.
A small folding step stool to reach items.
My two main things that I’m excited about is the boys being able to more easily find and access items because it gives them more independence, and I’m also glad to be able to store more items at once.
