A homestead pantry is the best way to store and easily access whole foods and canned goods. Whether you live in an off-grid tiny house like we do, or not, a beautiful, well-stocked, and organized pantry is an asset to your homestead. Check out my space-saving tips and tricks and learn how to organize your pantry to make the most out of a small space!
In my mind, a well-organized, well-stocked, and beautiful homestead pantry is one of the best ways to store and easily access whole foods and canned goods. Plus, for our tiny 350-square-foot house, it is essential that we are using every inch of space wisely and efficiently.
Little by little, my carpentry genius husband Brian is creating these gorgeous, efficient spaces, and our tiny house is starting to look as divine on the inside as it always has on the outside. Details like tile flooring, a mudroom shoe cubby, plaster on the walls of the mudroom, and finally, this custom-built homestead pantry are making our house feel so much more like HOME.
The Pantry Process
This was last winter’s pantry – a totally functional metal shelf unit on which we could store bulk food, glasses, and our beloved Berkey water filter. If you look closely, you can see the beautiful wood backing that my husband spent countless hours planing, sanding, and finishing.
This summer, we moved our kitchen outdoors so we had the spaciousness to finally finish the pantry. Brian created a gorgeous design with shelving just the right height for both gallon glass jars and quart mason jars. Perfect for an organized pantry. Some lovely pieces of oak and elm from an auction were planed and lovingly sanded and finished with Heritage brand natural oil finish.
We spent time this morning “moving in” to our new homestead pantry!
I’m in total pantry heaven.
Pantry Dimensions Note
For those that were curious about the dimensions, the width of the shelves was built to fit the space that we had available in our house. The height of the bottom four shelves is simply 1/2 inch taller than gallon glass jars and the height of the top four shelves is 1/2 inch taller than quart mason jars.
Now onto the walls and floors!
Oh goodness I keep showing hubby pictures from your blog – I want to come visit (not today LOL it’s 10 degrees here in mid-Missouri) Love those shelves – though I could have to have tons of them for my canning do you keep the bulk of your canning somewhere else a root cellar etc??
Thank you! You know, I have a confession to make: I’m not a big fan of canning. Actually, I really dislike it! So my goal is to avoid canning as much as possible by storing food in our root cellar, growing food year-round, and doing a bit of freezing. I will can jams and condiments!
We actually built a root cellar this year, so my goal is to fill its shelves with lots of homegrown food!
Very nice but, foodstuffs are best kept in the dark. Light will rapidly degrade the nutrient value and spoil your food. Labels often say, “store in a cool dark place”.
Yes, it’s true that our food would keep better in a dark place. Wish we had the space for an enclosed pantry!
my mom just strung a piece of fabric(think a cute curtain) across our pantry to keep light out — in an apartment, our pantry was a simple book case… but the light that came through, mom wanted to keep the shelf contents from getting exposed
Yes, that’s a smart idea to keep light out.
Its amazing! What’s your instagram name I would love to follow you!
Thanks! I’m homestead_honey on Instagram.
Wonderful! Great job
Gorgeous! I love this! I’ve been mentally designing shelves for a empty corner in my kitchen and this is exactly what I was thinking of! How thick are the shelf pieces? 1/2 inch? It’s hard to tell from the photo 🙂
I’m not standing in front of them, but I believe they are between 3/4″ and 1″.
Thank you for sharing this. We are moving into a much smaller house and I have been gathering ideas for practical pantries – perfect!
M
Gorgeous!
Thank you!
Absolutely gorgeous! I love that it’s open and easy to get to, without doors or curtains. Who needs them, when the shelves and what’s on them are that good-looking! Great job!
Thank you.I feel the exact same way!!
Beautiful. Would love to know what you keep in your pantry.
Beautiful. Would love to know what you keep in your pantry.
That’s a great idea for a future blog post!!
This is just beautiful Teri! I love it so much!!
Thank you, Ashley. It really is just so lovely. Now, when I have a shelf like this for my books, I’ll be completely happy!
lovely… but get those books up off the bottom shelf. What if the hot water heater, or washer go mad.. they would be soaked. And you would be sad. Once of those organizer blogs has these downloadable printable labels you can use. I also saw a stencil someone used to paint on chalkpaint spot.. that you could handwrite your ingredients. Will be waiting for update photos!
I guess that’s one benefit of having a house with no running water-no chance of water damage! But the plan is definitely to have a cookbook shelf. We just have to plaster the walls first!
Just gorgeous!
Thank you!
like pantry,old farm house.like.Jeff