How I Organized my Family Pantry /f18

dear friends,

today, I had the random urge to want to clean my family’s pantry. and so i embarked on that journey through all the items we hoarded throughout the years…to FINALLY…have an ORGANIZED PANTRY!!!! Woo hoo! Initially I felt overwhelmed, but now I’m so satisfied knowing I literally placed every single item that lays within 5 shelves and 2 buckets in its rightful place!

I want to show you what I did to my own pantry, tips for beginning the somewhat daunting task (depending on how large your family pantry is), and why I think it’s important for people to have an organized food system in their own house.

Let’s Begin!

Why even?
Why do such a thing? Did my pantry bother me THAT much…(?) Well, yes, it kind of did because over the many years our family has hoarded many many items and unless you have parents that are not hoarders at all, you probably also have items that should’ve been thrown out YEARS ago.

On a more social justice level, I think that not knowing what food you have in your house can lead to A LOT of food waste. Many of us, especially in the US, have a tendency of creating food waste. While it’s not like we consciously buy things to throw away, many factors play part in us forgetting in the food we purchase, and ultimately just throwing it away. Things that get uneaten, unopened, and many of those items eventually thrown out. We already know that more than a third of the food we purchase goes to waste on average….

Follow these steps:

Step 1 — “NO. HOARDING. IF. EXPIRED.”
You would think this is obvious, but for hoarders (like my dad…) it might be difficult to detach yourself from “sentimental” items. Even if that cute package you got from 2010 brought back an awesome memory for you, I say take a picture of it and then throwww it out! lol

Step 2 — Take literally EVERYTHING out.
Be prepared to spend hours of cleaning. It took me around 5-6 hrs (not including dinner and my distracted moments). Personally, I find that the best way to tackle any organizational issue is to be able to literally SEE everything. I hope that’s tangible for you, but if your entire pantry is too big, I would go section-by-section (only leaving the shelves/cabinets that you know are relatively organized by category). The worst part of organizing by section is finding out you missed a bunch of other related stuff from else where and now you have to re-organize areas you thought were complete.

Step 3 — Categorize your foods.
You’ll see in my pictures below how I decided to lay everything out, but this is really dependent on what food items you purchase and how much you have. Try to categorize them first (moving them around), and then see if you can visualize how much could fit on each shelf.

Step 4 — Try not to get too discouraged if you feel like you’re getting nowhere!
When you actually start to place things, be aware that you might want to switch it up multiple times. Don’t be frustrated about that, it’s all part of the process. Use full effort, or be left with a half-assed and still disorganized pantry. I kept telling myself, go big or go home lolol.

Step 5 — Definitely utilize clear open boxes/air-tight jars.
Best way to actually organize things is to have small clear boxes, and the additional mason jars where they’re needed. Example: I placed all the pastas back on the left side of one shelf, but in front of it I placed a basket in front which is much easier than moving small items to the side. I can’t stress this enough — if you had a messy pantry where things were just stacked on top of other things, not using additional items may just leave you with whatever you had in the first place.

Step 6 — Form follows function.
In any basic design class, you will learn that the thing you’re about to create should prioritize actual function, and the design and aesthetics extends from that. In this case, if you put a box in the back of your shelf, but need to reach it, don’t just put things in front of it because it looks pretty! Aesthetics are definitely important to me, but easy access to whatever I need and want is even more so.

Step 7 — More visibility, the better.
As you put stuff away remember you want VISIBILITY of almost everything. This is one rule of thumb to know whether you’re organizing effectively or not. If even YOU can’t see shit, most likely others will also not have a clear idea of where anything is.

Step 8 — Label when necessary.
Especially for mason jars with white powder (there’s a lot of white powder out there…lol)

Step 9 — YAY! You’re done! Go take a shower.
When you’re done, pat yourself on the back cos you did thatttt! and also, take a shower after because you’re probably dusty AF.

Those are all the steps I have for you! Below I will be showing details of how I organized my pantry, such as the particular categories I chose and how I decided to lay everything out. I did this all within a couple hours (ate dinner in between to refuel myself and just got distracted countless times lmfao) probably could’ve gotten it done much faster if I was actually concentrated.

Hope this helps you embark on this somewhat daunting task, and your parents will probably appreciate it too! Unless they know where everything is and you literally just screwed it ALLL up. lol oops my b.

happy almost thanksgiving! 🙂

Cheers,

also shameless plug to follow my foodstagram ~ @elzzeats

The Mess.
didn’t take out what was on the 5th shelf yet and there’s more after u turn the island corner…

After lots of thinking and playing around with categories, here was the final result! I’m happy with it! I also explain to you why this works well with my particular family~