Stylish & Organized Kitchen Pantry Ideas

Kitchen Pantry Ideas That Promote Style & Organization

According to a 2019 study, more homeowners are wanting walk-in pantries. However, depending on the size of your kitchen (or size of your overall house), creating a walk-in pantry might not be possible. That doesn’t mean you can’t create a stylish pantry though.

 

Keep reading to learn tips to style and organize your kitchen pantry for efficiency and visual appeal.

Change Up Your Pantry Door

While your pantry door might not be a focal point in your house, that doesn’t mean you can’t have a little fun styling and organizing it. Use your pantry door to add some extra personality and pizzazz to your kitchen. How can you do that? Try a few of these ideas:

• Barn door – If your home is full of farmhouse decor, consider changing your pantry door to a barn door. Barn doors have become popular in recent years, with more people choosing to use them on smaller doors, like closets.

• Frosted / glass door – If your kitchen is small and you want to make it appear lighter and larger, swap out your standard pantry door with a frosted or glass pantry door. You might have to keep your pantry more organized, but it will be worth the updated look and feel.

• Double doors – If you’d like to upgrade your kitchen pantry door, why not have a double door pantry? Double doors appear fancy and can add extra appeal to the room. Plus, you could have glass panes on the top half of the door for a little more elegance.

Use Canisters to Store Dry Goods

A great kitchen pantry organization idea is to organize your dry goods using canisters. They not only look nice, but they keep your food fresh! Use canisters to store pasta, nuts, flour, sugar, brown sugar, cereal, and so much more. You could even leave some of them out on the counter, specifically the ones you use most often, as they can look nice sitting out.

 

Canisters come in all kinds of styles, too. You can find plastic, glass, and ceramic canisters at places like The Container Store, Target, Crate & Barrel, and even Amazon.

Maximize Available Pantry Space

For small kitchen pantries, it’s imperative that you make the most of all your available space to maximize organization and storage. Not only do you need to use existing space, but you need to create space as well. How can you create space in your pantry?

• Use trays, step-up strays, and hanging baskets to create height and additional space in your pantry.
• Add hooks to the back of your pantry door to hang aprons, reusable grocery bags, and more.
• Install wire racks to the back of your pantry door to store heavier items like canned goods, sauces, and spices.
• Hang your potato chip bags, cereal bags, or cracker bags so they don’t get lost on your pantry shelves.

Add a Backsplash

One way to add flair and style to your kitchen pantry is by adding a backsplash. A backsplash can add color, texture, a unique design, and personality to what can be an ordinary space in your house.

Your backsplash doesn’t have to be tile either! You can use wallpaper or shiplap to line the walls in between shelves, create a chalkboard wall to show recipes for the week, or hang pictures of your friends and family. Since this area doesn’t see heavy traffic, you should feel free to design and customize to your heart’s content.

 

 

Organize with Functionality in Mind

The key to a useful kitchen pantry is organization. Organization can come in many forms too, it’s about organizing in a way that works for you. Some thoughts to consider as your re-work your shelves:

• Store items by what you use most. If you’re always baking, have your flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking cups, etc. on shelves that are readily accessible instead of on the very top or bottom. If you bake your kids’ lunches every day, store lunch items in an easy-to-grab location.
• Place heavier items towards the bottom of the pantry. Whether it’s bottled water, soda, or your crockpot, it’s best to have your heavy items on the bottom of your pantry. If your pantry is older, the top shelves might not be able to sustain a lot of weight which could lead the shelves to collapse and the heavy items to crush everything underneath. Keeping heavy items near the top of the pantry can also make it difficult to get down, especially if your arm strength isn’t the best. The bottom of your pantry can not only hold the weight of many heavy items but also make it easy to move when ready.
• Keep the things you use the least at the top of the pantry. If you only use paper plates, plastic silverware, or your food processor at special events, then it’s probably a good idea to store these items near the top of your pantry. They won’t take up valuable real estate in your most accessible spaces and are still easily stored for when you need them. 

 

Sort by Category

Another way to organize your pantry is to sort everything by category. This means keeping things like canned goods together, cereal boxes together, baking items together, etc. Sorting your pantry items by type makes it easy to go to that area of the pantry and grab what you need, instead of having to rummage around the shelves for canned green beans and canned corn.

You can also do this for snacks. If your kids have specific snacks in their lunch every day, you could get a basket with their name on it and only put their snacks in it. This not only organizes your pantry but makes it easy to put things away when you unload after a grocery store run.