Pantry Could Help Organize Your Kitchen

Tired of hunting frantically for that certain spice or can of tomatoes when you most need them? Here are some ideas for making the most of your pantry space, organizing food storage and deciding what foods should be in your pantry.

Turn a hall closet into a pantry, or a broom closet into one, if you’ve another place to store cleaning supplies.

If you have a wall oven and separate cooktop, consider replacing them with a freestanding range and converting the oven space to a pantry.

Install sliding, pull-out shelves, which give better access to often-wasted space at the back of a deep pantry. Storage-supply stores have such shelves, in wire, plastic or wood, which you can install yourself. Or hire a remodeler or handyman.

As a variation of the above, install sliding wire baskets, so cans and boxes won’t fall out when you pull them forward.

Install shallow, ready-made shelves for spices or other small items on the inside of a pantry door. To make room for them, either cut back the pantry’s shelves, or store foods a little farther back on the shelves.

Check out the plastic or wire bins, baskets, boxes and buckets at storage-supply, hardware and home-improvement stores. They come in every size and shape to help put order in food storage. Some will hang on a wall.

Use a Lazy Susan to help reach items on high shelves by rotating the turntable. These are available in various sizes.

Use expandable, tiered plastic shelves to store canned foods, spices, etc. The tiers ease access, and they come in different depths for different-size containers.

Cut away wall board and set shallow shelving into a space between studs in the kitchen. Use it for spices or other small items.

Use lidded, plastic canisters to store rice, dried beans, sugar, cereal and the like purchased in bulk. Clear canisters are especially helpful, letting you see how much you’ve used.

Create a backup pantry away from the kitchen by installing free-standing or built-in shelves in a utility room, basement or garage. These could hold extra supplies of canned goods, paper towels and so on.