Pantry and Refrigerator Organisation -

Along with my kitchen I love to and need to get stuck in to my pantry and refrigerator organisation. After cooking and hosting Christmas at our house both are usually in desperate need of a clean out.

This year I wanted to do some serious re-organisation of my pantry. I decided to buy all new storage containers and labels to try and streamline things throughout my whole kitchen. It’s very difficult to keep my pantry organised as its really small. I love to cook and bake so consequently have a lot of pantry items to store. This is the reason it can get messy quickly. Trying to avoid this happening again I am replacing all containers and storage options for items I hope will work better for me.

The Cleaning/Clearing out Process

To start the process I cleared everything out of the pantry. This is the easiest way to re organise all of the new containers. You can also throw out any food past its use by date.

I then spent some time sorting through the new containers to see how best to fit them in the pantry. This was not an easy process there was a lot of trial and error particularly with the items that couldn’t be decanted into the new containers.

The labels were from Pretty Pantry Labels and looked amazing. They really helped organise the pantry and give it a more uniform look. The large white bins at the top of the pantry contain my stores of food like extra flour and sugar. The two at the very top are empty at this stage which is surprising considering how full the pantry was before. To deal with the items that couldn’t be decanted I used clear baskets from Kmart and placed them at the bottom of the pantry. These contain extra things like sauces, potato chips and my daughters pantry items.

I had to do a little DIY project for my herbs and spices. I decided to keep the herbs and spices I use all the time in a cupboard near the stove in new glass containers. The remainder I put in a suction spice rack inside my baking cupboard. Unfortunately I couldn’t find new jars to fit the rack so I decided to remove all the labels from the old jars. I then spray painted the lids white and used my new beautiful labels instead. I think it came up a treat.

Tackling the Refrigerator

The fridge was in a terrible state because of Christmas and needed a really good clean out. Unfortunately I forgot to take a before shot but take my word for it, it was really bad!!!

Once again I emptied everything out and then looked at ways to improve how I kept things. This involved labelling and containers again. Tony gave me a Cricut Maker for Christmas as a surprise and it came in very handy for this project. I labelled everything in sight as you can see in the below picture😂

Our daughter still lives at home but usually takes care of a lot of her own meals especially lunches. So I have to make allowances in the fridge for her food as well as ours.

I used one of the old pantry turntables for condiments and it works great. I also used clear containers in the fruit and vegetable crispers to keep things sorted.

Next up was the freezer

I wanted to get the freezer sorted out as well because I use it a lot and it was a mess. Again I emptied everything out and gave the freezer a good clean. Next up was choosing the right containers. I was able to use some of the old pantry containers here which was handy for the budget. I purchased Davis & Waddell Eco Pockets to use for the fruits, nuts and vegetables. These pockets really made it easier to see the items I had stored in there. They don’t seem take up as much room as the packets the products game in. I also used the Cricut machine for labels again 🤣. The results in the freezer were great, I couldn’t be happier and it wasn’t as much work as I thought it would be.

All the items I purchased for the pantry and refrigerator organisation

Large, Medium and Small canisters from Big W.
Bamboo Turntable from Big W.
Bamboo & Glass food storage containers from Kmart and IKEA.
Small jars with bamboo lids from Pretty Pantry Labels.
Personalised pantry labels from Pretty Pantry Labels. If you do purchase labels make sure to order them well before you plan to do your clean out.
White baskets with bamboo handle from Pretty Little Designs.
Clear refrigerator baskets from K mart
Madesmart expandable shelf from Peters of Kensington.
Davis & Waddell Eco Pockets in various sizes from Kitchen Warehouse.
Grey baskets from Kmart

The finished kitchen

I have now finished cleaning and organising my whole kitchen including the pantry and fridge. If you would like to see the kitchen organisation post you can do so here. It feels amazing to achieve something this big. I love to cook and having a clean kitchen inspires me to do more. I hope I have given you some food for thought for your own kitchen organisation. I’ll leave you with some photos of the whole space.