Today’s post is dedicated to all of those pantry’s out there that sit hidden behind a door; ashamed of the mess they have become …

This tiny little pantry used to be the bane of my existence.

BEFORE:

When we moved into our home, our builder basic pantry consisted of 4 shallow wire shelves that would bend under the pressure of ALL  THE  THINGS I was trying to stuff on them. Every single day I would spend my precious time searching for things that I was sure were in there, only to discover that we were out of “said item” or it was actually in one of the kitchen cabinets.

How many of us just love spending time searching for things?!

“YES, that’s me!” (said no one ever). 

The challenge we have with this space in our home, is that this one little hallway serves many purposes; it was designed to be a pantry, coat closet, laundry room and mud room. Our pantry is also very visible from the kitchen and great room in our open concept home.

BEGIN WITH A VISION OF YOUR DREAM PANTRY:

I wanted this space to feel welcoming, organized, functional and beautiful. I also wanted it to flow seamlessly with the modern lake house vibe we were creating in the rest of the house.

When we decided to replace our over the range microwave with a beautiful range hood (more on the kitchen Reno to come…) we needed a spot for a smaller microwave in the pantry. So, I convinced my hubby that the pantry would be the perfect place to start on our journey toward a more functional and beautiful home.

DURING TRANSITION:

MAKE A PLAN

I purchased some beautiful glass mason jars & 2 small blue wooden crates during a sale at our local Michaels. My handy hubby measured the space in our pantry & the storage containers I had purchased and began building a custom pantry that would fit our needs perfectly.  We decided to utilize the whole space by building right down to the floor and up higher so I could display some of my pretty things on the top shelf.  We graduated from a 4 shelf pantry to 7 shelves!

Jason was about 3/4 of the way through the building process when I decided that I actually wanted to brighten this whole space up and … add shiplap. (Insert nervous looking emoji face here). Oops! I probably should have thought of this awesome idea before he started the project…

The truth is, I had been waffling back and forth for over a year on whether or not I should make the move to go ALL WHITE on the walls. I realized that in order for the entire main floor to be unified we really needed to start in our very visible pantry.

So, Jason (lovingly with no complaining at all… haha) took all the shelves down. We painted all the walls in this space the perfect warm yet bright white, WHITE DOVE by BENJAMEN MOORE. We also painted the shelving for the pantry and took this opportunity to remove the coat closet and replace it with an ultimate command station.

I couldn’t believe the difference that the white paint made.  The space suddenly felt so much bigger and brighter.  (If any of you are on the fence about white walls … get off the fence and just do it!  You won’t regret it!) #ilovewhitewalls

SORT & STORE

While Jason was building our shelves (again) I laid out every single pantry item on our kitchen table and island.

I started by purging expired items or things we really didn’t use or need. I then sorted the remainder of  the items into like groups (cereal, crackers, baking, school snacks..etc). This step is an important one to achieving your dream pantry. We often have too much stuff and need to simplify first!

Using jars or clear plastic containers to store food is a major space saver! And, they look pretty in a pantry! I found my mason jars at Michaels, but you can also buy them in bulk at Canadian Tire or any Home & Garden store. I chose to store nuts, cereal, rice, quinoa and sugar in the jars.

I also picked up some simple white bins from Dollarama to store some of our pantry items that I wanted easily accessible but out of sight. We put dry goods, crackers, school snacks, sauces and some baking essentials in these handy white bins.

In order to stay on budget, I utilized some large clear bins that we had sitting unused in the basement to store our canned goods, pasta, chip/popcorn bags, coconut oil & other dry goods we use for smoothies.

LABEL 

If you do not have a label maker, my go-to favourite is a chalkboard label. You can find them at Michael’s or even the dollar store! I suggest using a chalk marker rather than chalk. Use the same style of writing on all of your labels to make them look nice and unified – I prefer writing in capital letters only when labeling. If you would like to change a label, use soap and water first and then a magic eraser to get off all of the residue. Consider using a label on the back of a jar if you need to remember cooking directions!

I also used a chalk marker on all of my spices and then stored them in this cute wooden box I picked up at Michaels (on sale of course!)

Alright, now it’s time to show you some pretty pictures of my budget friendly dream pantry!

In case you forgot, here is the BEFORE picture:

And, AFTER!

 

 

 

Now, when we walk into our home we are greeted by a bright, welcoming, organized space!

 

I hope you’ve found some inspiration in this post! If you are looking to update your pantry into a functional, beautiful space here’s a recap of the steps you need to follow:

  1. BEGIN WITH A VISION OF YOUR DREAM PANTRY
  2. MAKE A PLAN
  3. SORT & STORE
  4. LABEL 

It’s time to open the door to that beautiful pantry of yours, get it organized and SHOW IT OFF!!

Happy organizing!