#SIVANDIEGO - The Pantry
I’m working to document all areas of our San Diego house since I know it’s been a big request. We still have a long way to go but have made movement in several areas, like our kitchen which I already shared. Last week, I tackled our pantry which I was actually very excited about. I worked with our designer to create a functional pantry that would specifically work for our family, how we eat, how much we store, etc. so I had been looking forward to actually organizing it. It’s not perfectly done but I’m getting there. I know I’ll get questions about why we designed it the way we did + what I used to organize it so all that info is here. Let me know if I missed anything!
WHAT I WANTED IN OUR PANTRY DESIGN:
+ Hidden yet accessible: Since we cook a lot of meals at home, our pantry is usually pretty stocked. So while I knew a small pantry wouldn’t work for us, I didn’t want anything that took up an obnoxious about of space. We ended up settling on a small closet-style pantry that you can access right off the kitchen and I love it!
+ Counter space: We own a lot of appliances and I knew I didn’t want everything crowding our actual kitchen counter space, so I made sure our pantry had enough room to store most appliances. We have a separate coffee station so the pantry counter holds things that we don’t use daily (but regularly) like our toaster, blender, juicer, tea kettle, etc. I love being able to easily use these things without pulling them down from a cabinet, while also having them tucked away.
+ Drawers: As the kids get older, they’ll obviously become more independent, and even now, Capri will sometimes grab herself a snack. I wanted drawers that could hold kids’ snacks so that they can do their thing independently. I also keep things like cans and overflow of ingredients in the drawers so they’re not causing clutter on the shelves.
+ A microwave: Similar to having hidden access to our non-essential appliances, I knew I wanted to hide the microwave in the pantry as well.
+ Large open shelving: I hate pantries that feel cluttered or inefficient. For ours, I specifically wanted large open shelves so I could put ingredients, food, etc on there while still being able to visually see everything easily. The shelves hold all of our daily essentials, like baking ingredients, adult snacks, smoothie stuff, pasta, etc.
WHAT I USE TO ORGANIZE OUR PANTRY:
+ Soft baskets: I’ve had these (similar here) forever and they work pretty well for extra snacks or things we don’t use daily. They hide everything well while still looking nice on the shelves.
+ Spice organizers: For the spices that I use most often, I keep them on a shelf situation so they’re easy to reach – these are the labels and jars. I also have more spices in a drawer using this.
+ Lazy Susans: I use a few Lazy Susans to organize items that go together. For example, all our smoothie ingredients go on one, toppings have their own (like ghee, honey, and syrup) and our snacks (nuts, seeds) are stacked on these on another. This makes things easy to access.
+ Glass canisters: I hate most product packaging so whenever I can, I remove things from the packaging as soon as I’m home from the store. I do this for our fridge and in our pantry for things like flour, sugar, granola, rice, pasta, and so on using these glass containers.
+ Large Mason Jars: We all eat a lot of cereal, but again, I cannot do the ugly packaging so I put them in these glass jars.
+ Shelf organizers: Between the kid’s vitamins, ours, supplements, and medicine, there are a lot of bottles in our pantry. This area used to be a hot mess but I recently moved everything to this non-skid shelf which was been so much easier. Highly recommend!
This post is sponsored by Amazon. As always, though, thoughts + selects are my own.