Pantry organizing

[Lainey]

I have a hallway coat closet that has been converted to use as a pantry. It's about 5' wide and 2' deep.
It's a rather haphazard makeshift situation now, and I'd like to clear the whole thing out and re-do it the right way. Right meaning simply, frugally, and also making the best use of the space.

So does anyone have tips on what worked for them or what they've seen that looked like a good idea? Obviously this is not a magazine-worthy walk-in type of space, but I think there's enough that could be done to make it much more usable.

[razz]

I am looking at a 6 foor wide closet in my new house and thinking I will get a storage unit about 30x18x60 inches and add some wire storage containers on the shelves on sliders for ease of use. Your space sounds a lot bigger. Look at this ecostorage stuff at Costco.ca
http://www.costco.ca/CatalogSearch?s...ord=ecostorage

[Rosemary]

We have a basement closet pantry. It's probably about 50" x 24", so not far off from your dimensions. When we moved in, it was a 2-rod closet, and the higher rod is higher than usual for closets. We left that one in. In the closet, we have 1 pine Ikea shelving unit that I bought about 25 years ago, about, 70" highx20"deepx36"wide). (Ikea still sells these pine shelving units - you select the height and depth and number of shelves. We bought another one for our house and i think it was about $30, 10 years ago.) Next to it is a narrower plastic shelving unit that has 3 shelves, the highest about 36" off the floor. On the rod, hanging over the lower plastic unit, I have 2 large tote bags hanging, and in these we store lightweight things such as rice cakes, crackers, chips (all things that I like to have out of sight, out of mind, too, as the bags are opaque). I can store a huge amount of stuff in this pantry.

Obviously we could have located one shelving unit that perfectly fit the pantry, but this system was inexpensive (I think we paid $12 for the plastic unit, and we already had everything else) and is perfectly functional.

[SteveinMN]

A few thoughts:

- Web sites like pinterest and houzz.com will have lots of ideas. apartmenttherapy.com also is a great site for figuring out how to maximize a limited amount of space. If you live near an IKEA or visit their Web site, there may be some other great ideas. You don't always have to buy their stuff to make it happen.
- consider putting a little extra time/money into making things adjustable. It's cheap and easy to make fixed shelves, but over time you most likely will regret not being able to adjust the space.
- don't forget to put things on the door, especially if the door does not fold on itself. Shallow shelves could hold less-used herbs and spices or small packets of dried food, etc.

We had a woodworking friend of ours put shelves into a hall closet. We got a fixed arrangement that usually works well, but has some dead corners and presents a real issue when we need to get into the attic since it isn't wide enough for a human and a ladder to wedge in and step up to the access panel.

[Lainey]

Good ideas, especially about making the shelving adjustable. I have a pretty good handyman and I'm going to ask him about that. If it means using pre-made shelving units like Costco, etc. sells then that's the way to go.

The doors unfortunately are bulky foldout wooden doors that are always coming off their flimsy aluminum tracks. Not sure yet what I'm going to replace them with but those sturdy barn-style sliding top track doors look easy for everyday use.

[kimberlyf0]

- consider putting a little extra time/money into making things adjustable. It's cheap and easy to make fixed shelves, but over time you most likely will regret not being able to adjust the space.

This is excellent advice! I can' t count the number of times I have changed the shelving heights in my pantry over the past 10 years.