Last Updated on February 23, 2020 by EditorKeeping your kitchen pantry all clean and tidy is sometimes not as easy as it seems. Especially if you run a busy kitchen. On some days your pantry looks all jammed and disorganized and this can affect your operations in the kitchen.
This article would guide you through the best way to declutter your pantry in a step-by-step approach. And if you don’t have a pantry, the steps in the article would also be used to declutter your food cupboard and other storage shelves in your home.
Why You Should Declutter Your Kitchen Pantry
At this point, you probably are wondering why you should go through the process of decluttering your pantry when you can just leave things the way they are. Well here’s why!
It makes your work easier and faster.
The primary purpose of a kitchen pantry is storage. Often, most of the items you use in the kitchen are stored in the pantry. With an organized pantry, it’s easy to locate everything whenever you’re in the kitchen.
This makes your work much easier and faster.
Amazing Aesthetics
Yes! A decluttered and organized kitchen always looks good. Instead of the crowded and stuffy outlook, a pantry has when unorganized, organizing your kitchen pantry gives it an appealing aesthetic appeal.
Optimal Use of Space
With the right organization, you might just be shocked at how much you can store in your pantry. Cluttered and unorganized pantries tend to take up more space, this is an important reason why you might want to consider decluttering your pantry today.
Getting Started
Just like in any other organization project, the first step in getting your pantry organized is decluttering. It is, however, important to note that you’re not just not decluttering. The decluttering also involves sorting useful items. Here are some important points to note in getting started.
Know the Size of Your Pantry
To ensure proper organization of your kitchen pantry, you should know the exact size of your pantry. This would help you look out for the most effective way to use the space.
Know What You Have In There
In the sorting process, you should also ensure that you have only the useful stuff in your pantry. There’s no need to keep items that are no longer of use to you. Some of these items just occupy a lot of space and don’t serve any purpose.
However, you might want to do your sorting in bits as bringing out all that stuff from your pantry at once can be overwhelming. So, you can do this in smaller units if you think doing it all at once would be a lot.
Decluttering
Once you’re done with the introductory steps then you can get to work properly. This step by step guide would help you get your pantry all organized in no time.
Start With One Shelf At A Time
Although it might seem like it would take more time, the best way to declutter is to do it one shelf at a time. Trying to get more than one shelf decluttered at the same time might lead to you having to rush up both shelves, especially if you need to stop and do some other things in between.
Also, by dealing with one shelf at a time, you have enough room to keep the contents of the shelf when you’re decluttering. This can help prevent mixing up the content of different shelves at the end of the process.
Keep Only Important Stuff When Decluttering
When decluttering, you should assess the content of each shelf and container in your pantry very carefully and ensure that only the things that you need to stay after the whole process.
Expired food and any other stuff that is no longer of use should be appropriately disposed of. Even food that does not come in packages have shelf lives and it is important to note these shelf lives. (See Food Storage Chart)
Also, you should find ways to get rid of any food that you’re sure your family would most likely not eat. This sort of food can be shared with a charity or with anyone that might need them.
All of this would help decongest your pantry and keep only the things you need in there.
Remove Crumbs and Clean the Shelves
Once you have removed all items that do not belong in your pantry, you can use this opportunity to clean out crumbs and spills that might litter the shelves. When taking out some stuff from your pantry, there might be spillages or leftover crumbs.
Sometimes, you might not be able to clean these crumbs during your cooking. Since you’re decluttering, you can use this opportunity to do some cleaning by removing these crumbs and cleaning the shelves.
Interestingly, another advantage of this cleaning is that it reduces the frequency of you relining your pantry shelves. If you can clean the shelves well enough, they come off as new.
Cleaning your pantry also helps you prevent pest infestation of your pantry. In case you have leaky containers, you might want to find more suitable ways to store such containers.
Once you’re done with the decluttering and cleaning the shelves in the pantry, you can then start work on the organization of your pantry.
Bring like items from the Shelves together
At this stage, you can move on with the organization process. The easiest way to get this done is by first bringing together all like items from the shelves together. Some items in the pantry can be hanged on the walls or door of your pantry.
Putting the items in groups can be done based on your preferences. In most instances, people classify these items in the pantry based on what they are used for. For food items, similar types of food items can be put together.
A major perk of this is that it helps you know when you have too many duplicates of an item serving the same function. Decluttering would also help you create more space to keep your pantry looking tidy,
With the grouping, you now know where everything is. At this point, all you have to do is work out the best space for each group of items. At this point, it is important to use the already established order in keeping the group of items.
An organized pantry makes all your kitchen activities much easier and faster. However, there are some other important points to note when decluttering your kitchen.
Organizing Your Kitchen Pantry
Although you’re responsible for the organization of your pantry, some tips make the job much easier.
Organizing Kitchen Cabinets.
Kitchen cabinets help to effectively keep your pantry organized. They come in different sizes and shapes and can be crafted to suit your pantry irrespective of the size. With kitchen cabinets, you can keep kitchen items serving the same function together at one point.
With good organization, you don’t have to worry about where anything is with kitchen cabinets
Organizing Deep shelves
Some pantries also come with shelves. These shelves also make it easy to store items. However, as earlier mentioned, it is important to ensure that the items stored on the shelves are designed to suit your needs.
For cabinets that have drawers, you might also want to avoid taking out drawers from these cabinets. A drawer can help with this.
Organizing Plastic Boxes
Plastic boxes are almost unavoidable in pantries. They are used to store several things. To keep your grocery organized, you can keep an extra plastic box hanging around for grocery bags, small rags and other items that you don’t always need.
Organizing Cans in a Pantry
Also, when storing cans in your pantry, it is important to ensure that the oldest cans are placed in front. This way, you can prevent food products from expiring in your pantry. Can containing similar things should be placed together.
Organizing Refill Products
Refill products should be stored in See-through containers. Storing these products in refill containers make it easy to identify these products before using them. In case a product is poured into a wrong container, you can double-check before using such a product.
Angled Shelving Can Be Used for Drawers
Sometimes, items kept in drawers might make it difficult to close the drawer. A good way to fix this is by using a nifty rack.
Use Labels
Once your pantry is organized, a good way to make it easy to use for others is through the use of labels. Labels would help visitors and any other person who is not familiar with your pantry know where to pick and keep everything.
Organizing Cookware
Also, you can use plywoods to carefully organize the storage space for pots and pans. This is because most kitchen base cabinets do not have the vertical space to accommodate large cookware. However, you don’t have to worry about this if you have enough space.
Frequently Used Items Should Not Be Too Far Off
All items that are frequently used should not be kept too far off in the pantry. This way, you don’t have to cause any chaos every time you need to pick these items. Some examples of these items include measuring cups, spices, etc.
Dangerous Products Should Be Out of Reach of Children
When organizing your pantry, it is also important to keep any dangerous items e.g. cleaning products, non-edible products away from where children can reach them.
In all, with a decluttered and organized pantry, working in your kitchen becomes much easier, not just for you but for others as well. Apart from the amazing outlook that decluttering and organizing gives your pantry, it also becomes to locate where everything is when it’s all organized and well labeled.
How To Organize A Small Pantry
Not all homes have the luxury of a large pantry. Sometimes there might not be enough room to get a large pantry. If your pantry is in this category, it does not make it any less.
However, considering that you have less space to work with, you must ensure the optimal use of the space. Whether it’s a small pantry closet or a pantry by shelf, a good organization can help you get optimal storage from your pantry.
By following the steps highlighted above, you can get yourself a top-notch pantry even in that small space.
Another interesting point to note about decluttering and organizing your pantry is that you don’t have to break the bank. You can set up your pantry on a budget and get your desired outcomes.
Get your kitchen pantry organized today and see just how much you can do with all that space.