organization: pantry

The three big girls are at the park and Stewie is *napping so I ripped through my pantry and figured I'd post the results.  Basically this all stemmed from still stewing about my lack of a broom closet and EPIPHANY!  I have a good sized pantry, but honestly, probably half of it is just dead space.  So a bunch of shuffling and some shelf removal and tada!  I've got myself a more functional pantry AND a broom closet IN MY KITCHEN (you know, where it's actually useful!)  As a general rule I try to group items either by type (cans, boxes, etc.) or by how they're used (breakfast, sidedishes, etc.)  I find grouping them by use works very well since you can see at a glance if you've got everything you need for a particular meal, instead of searching from shelf to shelf.  For example, pastas and sauces are directly above each other.  I've used the Martha Stewart Chalkboard labels again for each shelf in a desperate attempt to help my **family understand where everything belongs.  Let's break it down, shall we:

First Column
Top Shelf
All my cookbooks.  The top two shelfs in the pantry are VERY high and VERY deep ie. useless, but they can't be moved so I have to work with them.  It's as good a spot for cookbooks as any, assuming you're not a smurf.
Middle Shelf
Breakfast.  Cereals, oatmeal, breakfast bars, peanut butter, syrup... you get the idea.  It's all right here.  Syrup NEEDS to be up high and out of Stewie's reach.
Bottom Shelf
BROOM CLOSET!!!  Whoot!  I am SO happy to have found working, HIDDEN space for this!  It's not that I don't have room in my kitchen for these, but room OUT OF SIGHT is a whole different ball game.  I mean, who wants to be looking at a dirty broom all the time?
Second Column
Top Shelf
The perfect place to store a dozen rolls of paper towel.
Second Shelf
THE BAR.  All of our wine, beer, and shotglasses, plus booze.  Neat and tidy and away from the monsters
Third Shelf
Sauces, canned fruits/veg, etc.  Right above sidedishes for convenience, and right at eye level so they don't get forgotten.
Fourth Shelf
Extras.  I try not to mess around with "stocking up".  I have the luxury of having the time to buy things as we need them, and I've never thought of hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of food in a pile as an investment.  That is NOT any kind of judgement on those that do, just that it doesn't work for me.  Every once in a while we've got an extra bottle of ketchup or whatever, especially around the holidays, so this shelf is it's home.
Fifth Shelf
Pastas and Sides.  All small pastas are grouped in one basket, bigger pastas in the other.  In behind are rices, and stuff like Sidekicks.  Gross.  I know.  I line up the packs in the back library-style so that they're easy to see and sort through.
Sixth Shelf
Soups.  I've always got a bulk pack of tomato soup, so that lives at the back since being out of sight doesn't equal out of mind (our family eats a ridiculous amount of tomato soup!)  Then the rest of the soups hang out on the second hand lazy susan.  This has worked out GREAT (thanks, Mom).  Instead of two foot deep lines of soups I can barely see, this keeps everything pretty neat, visible, and accessible.  What makes this one great is that it has sides, keeping everything where it belongs instead of slipping off the edge.
Bottom Shelf
Baking supplies.  Everything here is grouped, basically, by task.  So decorating stuff is together, add-ins (raisins, chocolate chips) are together, etc.
 
Tips

• baskets, bins, and lazy susans are your friends.  Anything that can corral things into logical groups are usually a good thing.  It's also a built-in tool to keep your stockpiles reasonable.  If the bin is full, do not buy any more.
• grouping by function or meals works like a hot damn.  There's no rule that says that ALL cans have to go together, or ALL boxes.  If it works better for your family some other way, do that.
• If you can't see it, it's not useful.  Deep cupboards CAN be great, but not always practical.  If stuff gets lost at the back of your cupboads DON'T USE THE BACKS.  No joke.  If it means that the food that ends up back there just gets thrown out, what's the point?  You're better off just closing that bit off with a box or somesuch.  Only put stuff where it will actually get used.
• just because something wasn't designed "that way" doesn't mean squat.  Take a look at your cupboards: can shelves be moved?  can they be removed?  Don't worry so much about evenly spacing them as making them work for YOUR life.  I removed 3 shelves (though I just moved one over to the other side) and gained what, to me, what a whole new closet!

*plotting my imminent destruction.
** by family I mean my husband.  If it's not bacon and eggs the poor guy doesn't have a clue where to find it.