If your home has a kitchen pantry, you’ll find it much easier to keep your cooking space clean and organized. But how you use the pantry will have a direct impact on the amount of clutter that builds up and interferes with your daily routine. If you’re tired of having to dig through boxes and bags just to find a can of beans, you need a better organization system.

You’re Trying to Store Too Many Items

One of the main reasons that pantries become cluttered is attempting to store too many items. Even the largest pantries have only so much space. If you’re constantly taking advantage of bulk item sales, this is great for saving money, but your pantry must have room to accommodate everything you buy. For a lot of homes, the best way to expand storage space for bulk items is to add shelves in the garage. This frees up space in the pantry for items you use daily and makes it easier to see and access what you have.

You Don’t Have Enough Shelves

If your pantry has only one or two shelves, it’s time to add a few more, preferably adjustable ones. That way, you can easily adjust the height of each shelf to accommodate cereal boxes, small appliances, canned foods, and storage containers of all different sizes. You can choose from several types of adjustable shelves, including wire, wood, and metal styles.

Your Drawers Don’t Have Dividers

There are few things more aggravating when you’re cooking than when you can’t find an ingredient you’re looking for. And this often happens when a pantry has drawers that don’t have dividers in them. Instead of quickly picking up the ingredient, you have to spend several minutes digging through drawers crammed full of seasoning packets, snack bars, and small baking supplies. Fortunately, just like pantry shelves, dividers for drawers come in several different types, including adjustable, expandable, and spring-loaded styles.

You Store Chips on Shelves Instead of in Baskets

Chips are hard to organize because the bags take up a lot of space. Plus, they slide around and sometimes fall off the shelf. One of the easiest ways to keep them from adding clutter is to install a hanging organizer that has clips on it. Just put the organizer in the corner of the pantry and clip each bag onto it.

There’s no need to completely renovate your pantry to improve its organization. Installing hanging organizers, adding dividers to drawers, and putting up a few extra shelves can make a big difference in how functional the pantry feels on a daily basis. If you live in Tampa Bay, FL or a surrounding area and need pantry system services, make your first call to Southern Closet Systems.