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Sometimes the inspiration for our articles is as close as our own pantry door. Meet Kerry. She works on Home Made Simple, she's the mother of two, and her pantry is a mess.
 Having become a bit of an expert on office space organization, Kerry felt more than a bit of chagrin when opening her pantry door led to an avalanche. Hmm... it was certainly time for a pantry intervention, and with principles adapted from the office organization material, she was ready.
Step 1: Plan to Set Aside Some Time
The first step for any successful organization project is making sure to set aside enough time to do the project right. In the end, you'll be rewarded with a pantry that functions well and saves time and aggravation.
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A critical early step is evaluating how you use your pantry.
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Step 2: Assess
The next step is an honest evaluation of how you use your pantry. That can be as simple as opening the door and looking to see what you and your family members need to be able to get out of the pantry. Are you forever moving the 10 boxes of cereal to get to the oatmeal? Is some of that cereal stale anyway? Are those partial bags of snack foods that are falling off the shelf driving you crazy? Can you easily see what you have?
And then be sure to keep in mind the ideal of how your pantry should support your needs in the kitchen. Are the kids' healthy eating habits sabotaged by needing to move the chips to get to the fruit cups? Is your pasta too often falling out of the box onto the floor?
A picture really is worth a thousand words...
While our digital "before" shot was originally taken to illustrate this article, we discovered that it was exceedingly helpful in planning the pantry update. When we looked at the photo, it was clear that baking supplies took up a lot of room—even though no one had a great deal of time for baking.
The other observation we made was that some of our canned goods were difficult to see, which led to an abundance of some products (baked beans, anyone?) but a lack of others. Additionally, we also discovered that another cabinet was being used for other items that could be stored in the pantry. So our pantry organization project needed to be extended to a nearby cabinet.
What works presently?
There are some good things already in place in this pantry. The spice racks, for example, are a wonderful addition. Be sure to buy small quantities of spices since they'll lose their flavor if kept too long. Spices begin to lose some of their potency after six months, but smelling them is a good way to see if they're still good. We also like putting the purchase date on the bottom of new containers of spices so it's easy to tell when they've been around too long.
Step 3. Sift, Sort, and Use Swiffer?!
The best approach we found was to empty out the whole pantry. Every scrap of cereal and every last half-empty cracker box. This will also give you the chance to dust and wipe down any dirt so you'll be truly starting with a fresh pantry. If you've decided to include a cabinet or two in your reorganization effort, empty that out, too.
Consider questions like the following when you're assessing how you like to use your pantry: Do you like to stock up when items are on sale? Is this the only place you can store those things, or is there a shelf in the basement that might free up some room in the pantry? Are you overstocked on some things just because you didn't know what you already had?
Group things together on the counters to assess how much space you'll need for collections of items. Some sorting strategies could be:
• Pasta and rice
• Cereals and bread products
• Canned goods
• Baking goods
• Oils and vinegars
• Sauces, spreads, and condiments
• Bagged snack foods
• Spices
Use this helpful list to keep an inventory of all the items you have stocked in your pantry.
Step 4. Invest
In addition to an investment of time, you may also wish to budget for some high-quality, durable, multiuse containers. In the short run you'll make a possibly significant investment, but you'll save money over time with less food wasted when it gets stale or knocked over. And you can always add containers a little at a time as budget permits.
Another wonderful thing about reorganizing in stages is that it allows you to make adjustments based on what's working. Perhaps you decide it's really more of a hassle to get your tea bag out of a container every morning, but that same container is perfect for organizing your little tubes of decorating icing.
Step 5. Arrange (and Rearrange)
There are any number of ways to arrange your pantry, but the most important things to keep in mind are that it must work for you and you may need to be flexible and adjust it as you go along.
 We arranged our pantry based on the above groupings. But since there are children in the house, we put glass items out of reach of little hands, so sauces were put on a higher shelf. Additionally, we moved the canned goods out of the pantry and into the adjoining cabinet so they were easier to see. Snacks were moved from the cabinet into large, easily refillable containers in the pantry. Baking goods, oils, and less frequently used ingredient groups were placed on the top shelf.
Here are a few of our favorite things in our reorganized pantry:
• A plastic bag holder/organizer to tame the mess of those plastic grocery bags and get them off the floor.
• Deep sanity-saving rectangular snack containers to eliminate those bags of pretzels and chips that usually get stale or knocked over before they're eaten. Plus, we've found this eliminates multiple bags of the same food being opened.
• A smart cereal saver that allows you to add fresh cereal to the bottom and pour cereal out the top. It's also ideal for a little one who wants to "do it myself" because it's much easier to handle than the boxes.
• A grocery list on the door to easily capture things you're low on.
• One favorite addition is actually a deletion. We decided to evict the brown bags and put them into the garage.
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