Pantry Organization

I’m going to tell you a story about Husband. My husband is a very intelligent man. In fact, his sharp wit and our intelligent conversations were one of the first (of many) things I fell in love with. He’s an extremely logical and capable man. He just can’t find a damn thing in the house.

Don’t think it’s all my fault. I don’t (intentionally) place things in illogical places and I’m pretty consistent about where I store things. He just doesn’t look for things very successfully. I think this is a common husband problem, or am I mistaken? I’m mainly asking the ladies in the audience.

Once, long ago, Husband requested I pick up some grape jelly during my weekly trip to the grocery store. I happily obliged. After I unloaded the groceries and put the new jar of grape jelly in the pantry, I decided to rest my weary feet and lay on the couch for a bit. Husband went to the kitchen to fix himself a PB&J sandwich but, alas, he could not find the grape jelly.

“Honey, I thought you were going to pick up some grape jelly for me while you were at the store,” Husband calls out.

“I did. It’s in the pantry,” I replied, quite perplexed. I knew I had bought jelly and even remembered putting it in the pantry. “Check the pantry,” I yell from the comfy couch.

“I am!! It isn’t in here!” Husband yells back, becoming increasingly annoyed and hungry.

Grumbling and confused, I force myself to leave the sanctuary of the couch and find the elusive grape jelly. I peer inside, expecting to have to look in the darkest and farthest corners of the pantry to find the food my beloved so desires.

That’s when I saw, front and center and at eye level, a bright purple jar. I turned the jar around to reveal the grape jelly label. And then walked away without a word.

All of that was to tell you I have to label and keep my pantry very organized, for the sake of my intelligent husband. (Who I love dearly, my Wesley!)

Tiny but mighty.

Husband likes to have lots of little snacks with him during the day. He drives around a good bit for work, so he needs snacks that travel well and won’t spoil in the car. He also likes a plethora of choices. The boxes for all of his different snacks just couldn’t be accommodated in our small pantry with immovable wire shelves. So, I bought a clear over the door shoe organizer to store and display his snack options.

Can be purchased here and pretty much everywhere.

This gives him a complete view of our snack stock and frees up so much valuable space in our pantry. I also use it to store small packets and what-not that would otherwise be lost in the ether. Our pantry door is smaller than a standard door so I had to cut off a row pockets.Gotta love a custom fit!

On the very top shelf, we keep paper towels, wine bottles, bar tools (in the brown box), and breakfast items. I used a metal bookend to keep our stack of paper towels from rolling around and damaging our wine tools. We have priorities here, people!

Working from top to bottom, I keep all of “dinner” items stored on this shelf. A simple shelf extender (found here) makes finding the canned veggies easier. I got the pop up containers from Bed Bath & Beyond as a wedding gift, just one short year ago. Unfortunately, our non-adjustable shelves do not fit the tallest container, so it rests on its side. No biggie.

Next is our favorite shelf, the snack shelf!

We like a lot of cookies.

I think this shelf is pretty self explanatory. It is the go-to shelf when midnight (or anytime, really) cravings hit.

This is Ty’s favorite shelf. His treats are kept in a candy jar that we also received as a wedding gift. (Thanks MAO!) He has his paper towel rolls to the side; something he loves to tear up and is actually allowed to destroy. We keep his food in a white Itso bin from Target. I don’t see the bins on their website any longer but I still see them in the store. Peculiar.

I love this bin because you can open the top without having to pull out the container. We keep a measuring cup in there to make feeding times easier.

Ty gets 1/3 a cup, 3 times a day, as part of his diet.

 I don’t think the diet is working.

The following shelf is where baking items are stored. I keep the usual suspects in a basket to make it easy to pull out everything I need when the baking mood strikes, which is pretty much never. We're OK with store bought cookies, obviously. The containers that hold our flour and sugar are recycled from a couple of bulk snack containers from World Market. I also keep a few misc items on this shelf, such as the white vinegar I use to clean our dishwasher once a month.

Last but not least, on the floor, we store Ty’s towels. Our pantry is located right by the back door, so towels are easy to grab when we need to dry off a wet puppy. No muddy paw prints through this house, please!

I use metal key ring labels I picked up Wal-Mart for a few dollars to label areas of the pantry. They hook around the wire shelves nicely and make it easy for Husband to help me put away groceries properly. And find whatever kind of jelly his little heart desires.

And that's peek inside our pantry! Have you had to label your pantry for your husband/partner? Ever lost the grape jelly because it was turned the wrong way?