31 Days to a More Organized Life : Day Seven : Pantry Alternative

Yesterday I shared how we removed most of our upper cabinets during our kitchen renovation, leaving us with a lot of drawers for storage. One of the biggest changes we made when we took down the wall between our kitchen and living room was getting rid of our pantry. Because of the new layout, there isn't space for a typical tall pantry cabinet. Instead, we use four large drawers to store our dry goods.

In these four drawers next to the fridge, we keep all the typical stuff you'd find in a pantry. It's taken a few tries to find a good method. The drawers are deep so they hold a lot, but keeping them organized is an ongoing process.

The upper right drawer holds cereal and breakfast foods mostly. The stackable baskets came from Walmart and hold baby food.

The upper left drawer holds snack foods and breads. It's pretty packed right now! The basket in the back corner holds drink mixes like tea, crystal light, etc. 

The bottom left drawer holds baking supplies. I recently rearranged this one when I moved the flour, sugar, salt and baking mix into canisters in an upper cabinet, leaving more room in the drawer. I added a narrow canvas bin from Target that holds my hand mixer and all its parts. Again I use two stackable baskets to corral the smaller items. The bottom basket holds, pudding mixes and food coloring. The top basket holds crisco sticks, marshmallows, baking powder, etc. 

The bottom right drawer holds typical meal-based pantry foods - beans, soups, pasta, rice, etc. The corner caddy is from Bed, Bath & Beyond and is two shelves. The bottom holds canned goods that aren't used regularly but that I have on hand for special dishes. The top shelf holds canned goods that are replaced almost weekly because they are used frequently.

This last drawer/sliding cabinet is next to the stove and stores all of our spices and cooking oils. I have an extra shelf if I ever need to separate this into three parts, but for now all of my spices fit nicely on the top shelf with all the oils in the lower section. 

So there you have it! The upper drawers have a tendency to get messy quickly so I'm constantly moving things around so we can actually find stuff without digging through a pile, but it doesn't take long. I don't find that they get disorganized any faster than when we had an upright pantry in a cabinet. 

Thanks for stopping by! If you missed any of the previous days, check back here for some great before & afters!