For just a minute, I'm gonna wax nostalgic.  One of my favorite childhood places was Grandma and Grandpa's farm house.  It was a big old place, very likely the reason I'm an old house fanatic.  It was the only place I knew, as a child, that had a pantry.  It was a small room, with a window, and lots of cabinets.  It had a galvanized garbage can that held flour, Grandma made bread you see.  It had all manner of wonderful things in the drawers, like fancy crocheted pot holders that were too good to use.  It smelled wonderful, and it was the place to look for baked goodies.

As a grown up struggling to get a decent meal on the table in the evening, the part of Grandma's pantry that stuck with me is the flour bin.  She needed a lot of flour, but not right in the kitchen work area.  I longed for my own pantry so I could store a lot of flour.  Eventually I set up shelving for a pantry in our basement, right next to the chest freezer, and it was good!  I got better and better at using the pantry.  That's to say, I got better at having often used staples on hand in the pantry so we wouldn't run out between shopping trips.  The better I got at the pantry, the smaller the pantry got.  Here's proof:



The official organizer verdict?  TOO MUCH STUFF!  Some just had to go, like the cardboard four bottle wine carrier.  When I took this home I forgot I didn't have a life that involved toting around four bottles of wine.  Recycled it.

The good news:  I was able to repurpose another set of the wooden shelves for additional pantry space.  My plan was unanimously approved!  Here's the result:



Seriously way better.  Sometimes you need more to make it work.  And just so you know?  The plastic dishwasher soap buckets on the top left hand shelf hold flour and sugar.  My version of the galvanized garbage can.

Life with an organized pantry is bliss.

Tricky Duck Tip:  Use serving trays to corral smaller pantry staples, like mixes sold in bags.