To ask for help deciding what to put in my pantry?

[ScienceIsTruth]

I know it's a pretty 1st world problem, but I seem to have a mental block about where to start.

My kitchen is a great size with 96 cupboards (wall cupboards) and drawers on the bottom level (to save me bending too much). They range from 20cm to 80cm wide.
My pantry is in a room directly off the kitchen (near the fridge) and I've got shelving in there along with a drinks fridge (used for oversized stuff and drinks) and wine rack.

I can't decide what to put in there though. Atm, it's full of crap and I want to get organised now we've finished renovating, but I don't know where to start.

Do I put my baking tins, etc, in there?
Or tins, jars, packets etc?
Or a mixture of both?

Will attach a quick drawing of the whole space so that you can see where oven, etc, is in relation to the pantry and some photos (please excuse the mess) of the interior of pantry to show shelving space.

I'm also lucky to have a utility room a bit further away with a few cupboards for laundry/cleaning stuff and pet food, so I don't need too worry about where that goes.

Any advice/suggestions welcome.

It's like I'm paralysed with indecision.

Last 2 pics:

96 cupboards, wow

A pantry is a bit of a cross between a storage room and a larder. Although mines got food, booze, dog food, cake tins, kindling, plastic bags and piles of newspapers. Bit of a dumping ground really. If you can easily get all your dry food in it I’d use it just for that.

Great space!

I’ve got lots of cupboards, too. I’ve got my walk in pantry inside the utility room, so I stack dried goods, paper products and cans etc in groups that are easy to see. Together with the bulkier cleaning products and extra wine.

I prefer to keep pans/baking equipment out of sight in bottom kitchen cupboards...but I know that sounds strange haha. My pantry makes me happy 😂

I’d ditch the baskets. Ikea is great for storage jar/boxes/shelf splitters!

I’m meeting a kitchen designer next week to sort out mine.

96 cupboards?! How big is your kitchen. Can you fit all of your baking tins in one room and all of your food in the other? That would be preferable to a mix I think. I would keep the packets etc in the kitchen so you can get them quickly if you forget something, or want a quick cup of tea.

The first thing that springs out at me is you have a freezer near the pantry, and then another freezer diagonally opposite in the utility room. Unless you can really distinguish between the two in their uses, I'd be inclined to move the utility room freezer nearer the pantry, maybe make the utility room utility/cleaning materials.

My larder is about the same size as yours - a few inches narrower and 2-3ft longer, with a closing door. I use it for deep freeze, food storage for unopened packets etc - so tinned tomatoes live there because I grab a tin, put it in the cooking, throw the tin away. Flour stays there until I open the packet, then it moves into the kitchen, and when I've finished the kitchen flour, I go and dig another one out of the larder.

Difficult to reach top shelves are for infrequently used stuff like jam pans.

Otherwise I keep noisy kitchen devices there - microwave, bread maker - so I can shut the door on then while they're running.

Finally, there's a big cool stone shelf under the window at one end which is useful for cooling food before it goes in the fridge, or to keep fruit cool.

96!!!!! I think you should allow me to come round and organise everything for you 😁
Would be like my dream job

Bottom shelf - potatoes & anything else that’s heavy. (Bulk buy items)
Bottles of oils/vinegars next.
Rice/cereals pulses.
Cans at eye level.

That’s my plan anyway. 😃

No help, but do you have sharps bins?!

Watch do it on a dime on you tube she has great organisational ideas, best inspiration I have found on there watching how others have done it

All good points, and thanks.

tealandteal, it's roughly 6m by 4.5m. I'm very lucky.

EverlyNow, thanks. Most of the stuff in there atm, isn't staying (except the metal shelving, alcohol and fridge).
The kitchen and shelving are from Ikea, and I'm going to buy their storage jars for pasta, etc, so everything is visible, orderly and accessible.

I also have a piece of granite leftover that would make a nice cold shelf if I can decide how to organise it all.

I guess I'm also trying to minimise walking and lifting (eg, picking up 10 things just to get to the size pan/dish, etc, I need), as I have arthritis and fibromyalgia.

I was thinking that I could keep the baking tins I use the most under the ovens, and the rest in the pantry along with larger pans/dishes and kitchen equipment (eg, slow cooker), and unopened duplicates, as MereDintofPandiculation suggested.

I've 2 tall freezers in the utility that I use for meat, dairy, bakery, snack foods, etc. The one in the kitchen is an American style fridge freezer, and I tend to keep veg, fish, seafood and things I use more often in there.

coughingbean, yes, I'm on biological meds that I have to inject.

Check out Martha Stewart .com Watch out though, once you start watching the videos it gets a little addictive!

There’s a larder like this in the cottage we sometimes go on holidays to, and I always fantasise about filling it up with packets and tins! In beautiful lines and rows, and with like things together. Obviously they don’t fill it up for us, but what I do like about it is there’s a worktop running along the inside with all noisy and ugly equipment sat there ready to be used out of the way, a microwave, toaster, mixer, and I would put my rice cooker and slow cooker in there too. As a bit of a prepper, and someone who cooks a lot, I’d have shelves and shelves of canned fruit and veg, bags of different types of rice, interesting varieties of noodles and pasta. I usually have quite a few varieties on the go, but don’t have the space for as much as I would like. I’d also make much more pickle and jam varieties if I had somewhere to stick it all, so maybe that. I would get wooden crates maybe for fruit if you eat lots, my kids get through tonnes, and storage for squash, onions and garlic. What on Earth do you put in 96 cupboards? Is there anything even left to put in this amazing pantry?

Thanks, bunbun, will check that out.

I'm normally pretty organised, but I just can't think where to start, so that's helpful, MyNameIsJane, thanks.

theWarOnPeace, I think I'm a closet prepper too, , as I like to be really well stocked, and then if I'm in a bad phase it doesn't matter that I can't get to the shops for a few months weeks.
Also, what you've described about organising the cottage pantry sounds like heaven to me and is what I want to achieve.

No worries! I will PM you when I’m putting my larder cupboard together!

My pantry has all food that doesn't go in the fridge.

96 cupboards?!! Is that a typo?!!

@Justkeeprollingalong, no, that was not a typo.
The kitchen is my favourite room in the house. I love baking and cooking, and it's the heart of our home so I wanted it to be large enough that it never needs redoing and won't need adapting as my health gets worse. I also didn't want to have cupboards that are crammed so full, you need to empty half of it out to get to what you need.

96 cupboards?! I'm practically weeping with envy here. I have 5. I would love a pantry.

96 CUPBOARDS??!!

I think I probably speak for everyone here when I say we need a picture!

Wow can we see photos of the kitchen? And the rest of the house!

I'd have a think about how you'll get the stuff from pantry to kitchen. As you said, you don't want to be moving about ALL the time, and you probably don't want to be carrying heavy trays full of tins and spuds. Also, the glass jars of things will look lovely, but they are heavy. So for you, they shouldn't go up high, and maybe they should be the less-used things, with the most used ingredients in the kitchen.

If you're Ikea-ing, what about one of the trolleys? Then it would need a sort of parking Bay in the larder.

And for baking trays, the big faff is the rifling through them. Can you look at storing them vertically, using racks or rods to keep them separated, given that you have the room?

For pans etc, storing these as near to the cooker as poss - and ideally in drawers, not stacked up, as that will be easier on your joints.