Basement pantry

More fall cleaning/organization!

Our kitchen is fairly small, so there is not a lot of room for extra storage.  Soon after we moved to this house, Shannon built some shelves in the basement to store all of our bulk purchase and to be used as a pantry.  It is a great storage area. It houses tons of canned goods among other things.  I really wish I would have taken a before picture.  I need to start getting better at that.

I did have some sort of system for where the cans went and how they were stacked, but because the shelves are so large and kids help put stuff away, cans tended to topple and things got rearranged and then it would take a while to find what we needed.  Now, it is much better!

I went online (yes, again!) and scoured picture after picture.  I found some great, beautiful pantries with canned food storage, but I just knew I couldn't justify buying more baskets/containers for this shelving system that sits in our basement. :)  So, I just started looking around. 

I collect shoeboxes.  Well, I don't officially "collect" them, but I don't throw them away.  I was a teacher once and so the teacher in me always thinks about what could be built or stored in the shoebox. I get made fun of from time to time, but I saved a few fourth graders a couple years ago who needed boxes for their diorama projects!  

Okay, that was a tangent... but you can see where this is going!  Shoeboxes!  They aren't pretty, but man, are they super functional in this case!  I used both bottoms and lids and there you have it.  My cans are contained and it really helps with the boxes and jars as well.  And, things are really easy to find!

I did have a few containers/baskets being used in other places that worked better here, so I brought a few down.  Honestly though, the shoeboxes and lids worked the best in this situation because of the depth of the shelves.  It used the real estate in a more efficient way.

We store other random things down here as well.  Extra office/school supplies...

And bulk/extra toiletries and cleaning supplies...

Umm, the toilet paper spot is empty...that's in my Walmart.com shopping cart!

Can a basement pantry make you happy?  Absolutely.