My pantry has been a MESS for as long as I can remember. Every 6 months or so, I’d pull everything out and try a new arrangement to organize, but I’ve never loved it. It still always felt cluttered. I decided to conquer the pantry once and for all, this time investing in the right containers and spending some time actually measuring and planning out what I needed.

pantry, organization, kitchen — This is the before photo. You can see my various bins and containers that I’ve used throughout the years to “organize.” However, here are a couple of the things that always bothered me, regardless of which way I arranged things.
I didn’t love that the baskets and bins were not utilizing the full width of the shelving. Therefore, leaving valuable space unusable because of the handles on the containers.
I have used lazy susan’s in the corners of my pantry for years to store canned goods and soups. This isn’t a bad solution, but for me it just felt like they were all pushed to the back and I still never knew exactly what we had.
Boxes. There is nothing more annoying than pulling down a cereal box only to find that there are crumbs left in it. I already had alot of clear cereal and dry goods containers, I just needed to determine what the best way to use them was.
There were little to no labels. One thing I’m pretty diligent about with my boys is that everything has a place. (For example, backpacks have a hook that they go on when you come inside from school, cars have a car bucket, legos have a lego bucket, etc.) Jack, my 5 year old, has become pretty good about putting things back in their place and Korben, my 2 year old is starting to catch on. So why wasn’t I carrying the same idea into the pantry?

The first thing I did was pull EVERYTHING out of the pantry. This allowed me to check expiration dates on every item, combine doubles of spices, organize the items on my kitchen counter into like groups and measure the shelving to determine what size containers I would need. I wanted the containers to use the full width of the shelf so there was no wasted space.
The only exception I had was a set of clear, large storage bins that were 14”x14” because I found them for such an amazing price at Home Goods and I already had an idea for how I’d use them in the pantry and still allow for maximum space utilization.
My shelving is 16 inches from the wall to the edge of the shelf. I took to Amazon and started the hunt. I ONLY looked for containers that were 16 inches in length. I found lots of really cool containers and organizational shelving, but most of it didn’t fit my measurements and since one of my main goals was to utilize space well, I passed those up and only purchased containers that were 16” long.
In the end, I went with a combination hard clear storage bins and wire baskets.

For the clear bins, I used a mix of the 4”, 6” and 8” depending on the items. At the end of this post, I’ll provide links to the containers and labels I used to organize everything.

The 4” bins are perfect for most seasonings, vitamins, wax melts, etc. The 6” bins are perfect for packaged items that you want to store together like broths, rice boxes, salad toppers, instant potatoes, etc. Last, the 8” bins were exactly right for larger container items like peanut butter, marinades and spreads, as well as all pasta items.

The wire baskets are stackable, if you need to use them for that. For us, they are perfect for those grab and go items that the kids eat all the time like chips, popcorn and rice cakes. They are also great for protein shake containers, which are somethings a little bulkier or awkward to place.

Trying to decide how to organize and store canned goods was a little harder than I anticipated. I knew that I didn’t want to use the lazy susan again. I wanted them to be able to be clearly seen. I ordered a couple of different shelf contraptions, but in the end, I liked these clear bins. Apparantly most people use them in their refrigerator for soda and water, however they work perfectly for canned goods too!

Remember how I said that I hated looking into a cereal box and finding only crumbs? Using clear containers for dry goods, cereal, etc. is the best way to avoid that problem. The best part is being able to glance in the pantry and quickly see what needs to be added to our grocery list without digging through boxes or finding out that the box is empty when I’m getting ready to cook something.

Instead of putting bins or lazy susan’s back into these vast (and annoyingly deep) corners, I decided to use them for the things that we buy in bulk and typically take up alot of room on a regular shelf. Paper towels, napkins and aluminum pans are something I restock every few months. Now that they are stored in these corners, I can see what we need to restock and because of their size, nothing is getting lost in the corner.

I hope this has been a helpful run down to show you that pantry organization IS possible. It definitely takes some planning and time, but now that it’s done I truly love opening my pantry door.

Below I’m linking up all of the bins, containers and labels that I used.