The Organizer's House.... featuring Debra Ostrus

Some Organizer's really walk the walk! I'm feeling the need to give my pantry a serious perk-me-up! Here's an opportunity to take a look at my fellow Washingtonian's organized pantry... It almost makes me want to cook ;)

A Sneak Peek into the home of Professional Organizer Debra Ostrus of Gig Harbor, Wa and owner of Spaces Streamlined Home Staging, Organization & Redesign .

 

HER ORGANIZED SPACE:  Under-the-Stairs Pantry

 

HER ORGANIZING TIPS:

1) If possible, Keep your all of your pantry food items together in one place. A couple of large cabinets, a kitchen closet fitted with shelving or a cabinet specially designed to house food supplies will make it easy to know what you have and where to find it.

You can also create a pantry in what could be an awkward and wasted space as in my home. Here, under the stairway, deep shelves were installed and large baskets serve as drawers to turn this otherwise hard to access space into easy to use storage for bulky items. One basket is used to hold bags of snack foods like chips, granola bars and crackers, another bags and boxes of pasta and rice, a third contains paper products such as napkins, paper plates and plastic cups and the last extra baking supplies like bags of sugar, etc. These baskets serve to group loose and irregularly shaped items together and keep them from being piled in a mess on the shelves.

 

 

2) I love to keep all of my various oils and vinegars stored on turntables on the pantry shelf where I can easily spin the one I want to the front.

 

3) Because I bake quite a bit and don’t have room to store baking supplies in my prep area, I store everything I need for baking on this rollout cart. When it’s time to make cookies or bread I just roll the cart over to my work space, measure out what I need and roll it all back at once. This is a huge timesaver for me and makes the whole process easier.

 

4) I keep foods organized by storing like items together, for example canned fruit, canned vegetables, soups, boxes of cereal, etc. so that I’m able to see at a glance what I’m running low on. This way I don’t buy more of things I already have but can’t find.

HER ORGANIZING STYLE:  Keep it simple, make it easy! I set my systems up to work with the way I habitually do things so that it becomes a routine and something I don’t have to think too hard about- I just do it!

Comments

[Melanie Dennis]

I love the baking part. Frequency of use is such a great organizing principle to apply in the kitchen. Beautiful.

[Romona]

I use a rolling kitchen cart as my baking center. Love it!

Romona

[julie]

Hi! I love your pantry!! Where did you purchase the white shelving you used in your pantry?
Thank you,
Julie