As our home starts to come together and represent our style more and more, I’m developing little corners and areas that I keep coming back to. In my kitchen so far, my dark blue sofa from sofa.com is one of my favourite places to plonk myself whether its first thing in the morning or like right now with my laptop perched on my lap and a warm mug of tea next to me, its a place I just gravitate to time and time again. The same can be said for my pantry with its grand flood to ceiling doors and what appears to be endless amounts of storage, It has turned in to a bit of a project of mine to get it as organised and functional as possible. Initially we just shoved everything inside and closed the door, ignorance was bliss. But sure enough, where I once thought it was my own personal Narnia that couldn’t possibly ever get full, it didn’t take long before opening those big grand door became a matter of life and death, you didn’t know what was going to come tumbling out! After a sneak peek over on my home account @LydiaMillenHome and being inundated with questions about my new storage jars, I thought it was about time I put together my own little guide to my pantry and where to find the best tools, both aesthetically and functionally for the job. So if you are looking to organise your kitchen a little more or if you too are wanting to finally get around to organising your own pantry then hopefully this post comes at the perfect time.  

BASKETS

Ah the dream! I am finally blessed with the opportunity to write a blog post about my one true love, baskets. But not just any baskets, I’m very particular in what they look like and you will see them all over my home; from holding all the remotes to the TV’s right through to my Zoflora stash, I use them for absolutely everything including my pantry. Luckily for us there are so many options available and you are even able to pick them up for a steal in Ikea, however they only do one size and depending on the size of your kitchen cupboards or pantry you may need to go larger or even purchase a selection. I personally have bulk bought a load of the small ones from Ikea on my last visit and I just buy as many as I can because I know I will find uses for them but I also need different sizes and for those I always shop on thebasketcompany.co.uk we have a number of their large log baskets around our home, one containing the wood for our fire, another behind the kitchen door for all our cardboard recycling and then a couple of others for blanket storage. Then we have around 25 of the medium baskets for inside the pantry, storing shoes, storing towels and I also use them in my dressing room for Beauty storage! In my pantry its all organised in to separate sections with the top two shelves for snacks and treats, the middle for sauces and condiments with seeds, dried goods and baking ingredients all nestled in the door storage!

SHOP MY FAVOURITE BASKET HERE

STORAGE JARS

I had so many messages about these when I gave a quick peek at them on my stories purely by accident and I was secretly quite pleased with myself that you liked them as much as I did. I’d been on the hunt for the perfect storage jars for a while but I kept finding a lot of them were too ‘shabby chic’ for my style or my kitchen style so I scoured the internet to find the perfect ones. They needed to have a diameter of 10cm in order to fit into my door storage racks so it was quite limiting at first but I stumbled across these in the most unlikely place and the fact that they came in 3 different heights was perfect for all the different ingredients that needed storing. There are some things to note though, you want to be sure to refill the jars when you have finished all the contents inside and even give them a run good washing up before refilling, so that the bottom contents doesn’t keep having newer ingredients popped on top and allowing the bottom to go off. For this reason we have a basket for our refills that are ready to go when I start showing signs of running out. I also noted some mentioning flour needing to be in an air tight container. Ive always kept mine in its original bag even after opening and never had any issues because we tend to go through it quick enough, since having my Thermomix I’m actually enjoying baking! The only issue I was finding was that it kept making a mess so into the glass container it went and its working out well so far! I love the simple yet traditional design of these particular glass containers and the chalk board labels again, make these super versatile and easy to change to your kitchen needs.

SHOP MY GLASS CONTAINERS

 

THE PERFECT LABELS

Well I certainly didn’t think that the hardest thing to find would be the labels for the baskets but I spent an entire evening searching for these! They come with their own pen which is very easy to wipe off and relabel whenever needed and despite what I initially thought, I love how they look on the baskets, so much so that I’ll be grabbing some more to use in the utility and my dressing room too. I also think its really useful that they are double sided because on the back you can even list everything that is in that particular basket, so on the front could be the overall contents but the back can go into a bit more detail!  

SHOP MY CHALKBOARD LABELS HERE

 

HAVE YOU ORGANISED YOUR KITCHEN? WHAT IS YOUR MUST HAVE ORGANISATIONAL ITEM? SHARE YOUR TIPS AND TRICKS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW!