Kitchen Organizing 101 – The Pantry

Introduction

Spring is here (at least on the calendar)! I say on the calendar, because it’s cold, dreary, and nasty outside. I know in my head real Spring is just around the corner, but it sure doesn’t feel like it. Nevertheless, I’m getting that Spring Cleaning itch. Does it happen to you? You’ve been cooped up all Winter in the house. Going outside is a pain with the coats, boots, gloves, and hats. Getting the kids ready to go outside is even more onerous. Hectic Grandson never wants to put on his battle gear to fight the elements. He’d go outside in shorts and a t-shirt if I let him! But now, the thought of being able to go outside triggers this other response: A guilty one. I should’ve used my time indoors to get the house cleaned and reorganized, but I didn’t. Now there’s the pull of the outdoors countered by the anchor of the disorganized interior. It’s a battle every danged year…I guess I’ll never learn! 

Intellectually I’m not a proponent of Spring Cleaning. I prefer do a little cleaning and organizing throughout the year. But in reality, here at Hectic Manor cleaning goes in spurts. We’ll do a bunch and then slack off. Unfortunately, our break lasts too long and we fall behind. Everything disintegrates into a mess and needs addressed. In fact, I decided to use this blog for accountability. Remember when I wrote the The Great Kitchen Makeover War Begins? It was in January and written with best intentions. I even followed up with Beginning the Decluttering Battle. Then I dropped the ball. Bigtime! Unfortunately, it wasn’t just on the blog. Life got ahead of me and the house started deteriorating. The kitchen got messier and messier. As I sit here writing, the kitchen is crying out for a deep-cleaning. 

Sadly, I know it will improve life. Easier food prep is one result. Finding pantry, fridge, and freezer items becomes a breeze. I’ll actually enjoy my kitchen time. But the other side of brain says “Why bother?” The Hectic Clan doesn’t subscribe to my “Everything has a place and every place has a thing” philosophy. Foodstuffs depart the pantry and don’t go return. Or worse, they’re placed in entirely random locations. It’s so frustrating!

I recognize there are two problems at play:

• Getting the family to buy-in to my philosophy
• Trying to find a system that works for everybody

With the resignation I can’t change other people’s behavior, I often resort to throwing up my hands and letting the chaos rule my life. But that’s not how I want to live. 

So take this post for what it’s worth. It’s my thoughts on how to do things right with a full realization this is a pipe dream in my reality. It doesn’t mean I don’t have a good plan, it just means that I can’t execute. Hopefully your mileage will vary! 

Giving it the old college try

There are lots of places where you can start to revamp your kitchen. Previously I talked about avoiding spaces with lots of activity. My original plan was to attack infrastructure where I’m the only one who uses those areas. I’ve entirely failed to make progress in three months; time for a new plan.

I opted to attack the refrigerators at Hectic Manor. 

I emptied and deep-cleaned the fridges. I carefully considered the most efficient use of space. With great care and precision, I determined how to use the space effectively, even dividing larger shelves into zones. Everything went back into the fridges with this framework and it looked great. The true test would be in actual usage.

I made a formal declaration to the Hectic Family regarding the layout.

We had dinner. Items left the fridge; some to the counters others to the table. After the meal, various family members put things away. My carefully laid plans were shredded. It appeared they intentionally subverted my systemic approach, stowing items into entirely randomized locations. I was devastated, but not to surrender…I waited. 

When they were all in bed, I pounced!

I emptied the refrigerator and reorganized everything. Staring at the reorganized fridge as the clock tolled midnight, I was proud I had resurrected my organizational scheme. I decided that getting buy-in was going to take time. I was willing to redo some. I knew this would make life better for everyone. No more double-purchasing of items we had. Diminished complaining about not being able to find food. I went to sleep with a sense of accomplishment and warmth.

I’d made life better for everyone. 

Breakfast came, food left the fridge, and then returned. Upon inspecting the fridge, I was totally demoralized. I faced a random mishmash again! Yet, I wouldn’t surrender. Before everyone came home from their days, I reorganized the refrigerator again. Have I mentioned I’m a slow learner?

Dinner…disorganize…demoralize.

I finally took the hint and left the refrigerator alone for a few days. But every ten days or so I find myself reorganizing. I’ve tried notes on the shelves. I’ve tried moving the majority of items to the garage fridge. I’ve reduced the amount of food we’re storing. I’ve pleaded and begged to just try things my way. They seem to understand how important this is when I’m pontificating, but when it comes time for action, *POOF* all thoughts of working with my system evaporate. It’s painfully obvious it’s my system and nobody else buys in. 

Reasons To Organize Your Pantry

So I’m trying to move on to the pantry where there is less action and it’s easier to rearrange. We’re very fortunate to have an enormous walk-in pantry at Hectic Manor. That provides some opportunities but also has associated challenges.

The biggest reason to reorganize the pantry is to make it more efficient. With lots of space comes the specter of things being totally disorganized. At breakfast time it’s really frustrating to have to look in half a dozen places for breakfast foods. When somebody is baking it’s ridiculous to have to explore different places to get the ingredients. 

I’ve got a plan. And a map. Admit it, you weren’t surprised! Funny thing is, those have been in place for years. Yet on a fairly regular basis I have to refer to them to put things back in place.

I alluded to how to organize your stock earlier. We’ve found organizing by type of food or ingredient works really well. Our breakfast foods are on the lower shelves, just inside the pantry door. This allows Hectic Grandson to select his own cereal and haul it to the table. Since breakfast foods are distinct from the other foods, it also allows them to be out of the way during other meals. 

All the baking goods are above the breakfast foods. There is some overlap (oats and granola, for instance), so the two categories share some space. This makes finding and restocking easier. It also allows us to review the ingredients needed for a particular recipe. If the the shopping list wasn’t updated, we can catch that fairly quickly. 

Pastas and sauces have their own co-located space. It’s kind of a duh…we use them together most of the time so they’re housed together. Canned vegetables, canned fruits, and soups all stick close by one another. While they don’t get used in conjunction, they take up similar space and this design makes it easy to find canned items as well as put them away from the grocery shopping. 

Boxed items (stuffing, rice mixes, etc.) reside just above the canned items, since they often provide a similar function in our meal prep to the canned foods. 

Our pantry is of a somewhat unique design with it’s L-shape, wrapping alongside and behind the refrigerator and freezer. High-traffic items are near the front and low traffic items are near the rear. In an effort to cut down on the amount of sweets and salty treats we consume, they’re located on the highest shelves in the deepest recesses of the pantry. I’m not sure how effective this is, but the idea is sound! 

There are some shelves that are out of reach of even my 6’ 2” frame without the aid of a step-stool. Those hold our excess stock. Extra coffee, bulk spices, and anything not used on a regular basis live up there. This makes great use of that space.

Tips & Tricks

The most obvious tip is pretty simple, but hard to follow. “When you take it out, put it back where it came from”. You’d think this would be easy to implement, but for whatever reason it’s a struggle. Part of it harkens back to the idea of buy-in. Most of the Hectic Clan uses the items from the pantry infrequently. If they have to search for something once a week, what’s the big deal? For me it’s huge, since I’m usually extracting dozens of items from the pantry on a daily basis. Spending five minutes searching for each of six items blows 30 minutes. Over the course of a week that easily adds up to several hours I’ve wasted searching for items with a freaking home. 

Can you tell I get worked up about this? 

If you can succeed getting your family to follow this one simple admonition, I believe your life will improve immensely. And so will theirs. If you do succeed, please let me know what you did. I’m still working on it. I’ve got one other member who’s really good about it, and the two of us are making huge inroads with Hectic Grandson. The best thing I’ve heard was when one of my kids called Hectic Grandson “a little Papa” after he reprimanded the family for putting things in the wrong place. To me, that was winning! 

The second trick starts at the grocery store. When I extract items from the cart and put them on the belt, they mirror the organization of the pantry. The canned goods hit the belt together. Boxed items are close behind. All the breakfast foods, whether from the bakery, cereal aisle, or elsewhere in the store get placed on the belt collectively. When we get home, the pantry bags go directly to the pantry. Then we stock the shelves, doing our best to follow the predetermined plan. Again, we’re only saving a few minutes, but add it up over the weeks and months and the time is definitely noticeable. 

Finally, please make a plan. I know it takes time to analyze your space and determine where to allocate your food. When you have a huge space to work with, it’s not to bad. But not everybody has the Taj Mahal of pantry storage. When space is tight having a plan is even more important. Think about what you keep in stock and how you use it. Then shuffle things around so their usage matches their location. Common stuff needs to be the most accessible. Rarely used items can hide in less-accessible nooks and crannies. If you take the time to think it through I guarantee implementing that plan will save you time and frustration. 

I saw an interesting description of this concept in an article on MyFitnessPal’s blog: Shelf-Consciousness. The idea is you won’t use what you can’t see. And if you can see it, you’ll grab it more easily. So those chips and sweets hiding in the back of the pantry are harder to find than the healthier fare near the front. Adding a little bit of resistance to unhealthier options while counter-balancing it with high-visibility healthy ones might lead to better choices. 

Wrap-Up

There you have it, my game plan for getting your pantry in order and keeping it that way. As I mentioned above, this is my plan that we fail to execute on most of the time. I honestly believe it would would make it a great day in the kitchen for the entire Hectic Clan if we could follow it. Apparently there’s a lot more selling of the idea before it becomes reality though…

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