Pantry Overhaul

I need to do some major overhauling to my food shopping, menu planning, and pantry organizing. In our previous house we had lots of kitchen storage and a beautiful pantry with deep shelves that pulled out making it nice and easy to see what we had on hand. Our current kitchen needs some major re-modeling - someday. Cupboard space is okay - but I really miss the pantry.

There is a small 38" wide closet in one corner that my husband had promised he would put shelves in - one day for a pantry, however after almost 3 years of being here I'm still waiting. We put some plastic shelves in it for the moment to serve the purpose - but they really aren't cutting it anymore.

So I'm on a quest to get something done in this closet that will work better. Once I have that I'm hoping I can start building up my food stuffs. I have never been one to "stock up", but really feel the need to start doing this for a few reasons:

1. I never have on hand what I need when I decide to cook something (poor menu planning has a lot to do with this - but I also tend to not have some of the basics on hand either because I forget to buy them or we just run out)

2. I hate grocery shopping, the lesser times I have to do it the better.

3. In today's economy - one never knows what tomorrow is going to bring and I would like to be able to "stock up" on food just in case something happens.

I'm hoping with our tax refund I can begin to work on this project. Originally I told my husband I just wanted to get some wire type shelving for canned goods and put them into my laundry room until he was able to do my shelves - but then figured why not just work on the closet first - then if I still need more storage space we can turn to the laundry room.

I've planned out putting the wire shelving along a side wall to put the canned goods on, then shelving along the back wall for the other stuff. I figure I can do four 18"x18" wire racks for the cans (3 shelves each), then five shelves 25"-28" long by 8"-10" deep - 15" apart. I figured this would be deep and tall enough to hold most boxed type foods we use.

My husband was asking what I wanted to do tomorrow (his day off) so I think I'm going to suggest checking out the stores and get some prices on this stuff and see where we are money wise. I'll try and remember to post before and after pictures once we accomplish this project. Then my next project will be building up my food supply and developing weekly menus.

Until next time...