Putting a Pantry in the Garage: Organization Basics

When you’re running out of room in your kitchen, organizing and installing a pantry in the garage can be an ideal solution.

There’s only so much room in your kitchen pantry, particularly when you discover sales on bulk canned goods and other items. And if you go to wholesale clubs, well, the amount of goods you need to store grows with every visit. With warehouse clubs and supercenters’ industry revenue increasing to $493.0 billion in recent years, it’s likely that you or someone in your home goes wholesale shopping at least every now and then.

So, that generally means you may have excess and need to find another storage place—like transferring goods to kitchen cabinets or creating a pantry in the garage. When you’re running out of room in your kitchen, organizing and installing pantry options in the garage can be a simple solution. But how simple is it really? And what if you need advice for implementing and organizing it? Continue reading for new garage storage pantry ideas.

Organizing a Functional Food Pantry in Your Garage

Although the kitchen may be the center of your home as far as food and eating go, the garage is a new and trending area for creating a functional food pantry.

Here are some helpful tips and advice for planning for and organizing a food pantry in your garage.

Planning & Installation

Implementing a pantry in the garage requires several preparation steps before realizing the actual custom design of your garage pantry. You’ll need to assess the space, clear out unwanted items, and prepare for your new pantry extraordinaire.

Assess the space:

• In your kitchen: Take inventory of the food in your small pantry storage or cabinetry, deciding what will stay in the current location and what needs to move to the garage.

  • Note: You may want to take out everything and re-organize items into categories, such as canned goods or snacks for easier, simpler storage. This will also come in handy when it comes time to transfer items to your new pantry in the garage.

• In your garage: Determine how much area is actually needed and the best place to put the pantry. You’ll need to:

  • Consider the amount of space that’s really required for the food you’ll be transitioning.

  • Choose a corner area with walls already in place if you want to create a walk-in pantry, proper shelving, or solid space for cabinetry.

  • Open up the intended area if it’s not already cleared and available, keeping at least 36” of clear walking room to fit in a pantry.

Make room:

• In your kitchen: Throw away expired items and sort food into sections or temporary boxes to help you more clearly see what products need a new home.

  • Note: If you’re about to go wholesale shopping, keep larger food pantry storage or bulk items set aside for transferring into the garage.

• In your garage: Determine your final plans for the area of the garage you have chosen.

Prepare for your pantry transition:

• In your kitchen: Evaluate kitchen clutter solutions that may help alleviate some of your concerns related to smaller bulk items like spices or condiments. You may want to:

  • Re-organize your reach-in pantry, taking out any major bulk items that don’t fit well and setting them aside for your pantry in the garage.

  • Add components like adjustable shelving for housing food products more compactly.

  • Re-organize your kitchen items the way you’d like them arranged, and prepare for transferring bulk items and other products into the pantry in your garage.

• In your garage: Custom cabinetry may work well for your pantry if you’re limited on space. You’ll need to either install these yourself or hire a custom designer who knows how to organize garage cabinets professionally.

  • Note: A custom designer should offer a free 3D design to help you envision a pantry space that will truly be a perfect fit for your family and your garage.

Once your new pantry space is ready to go, it’s time to consider how best to organize your new pantry to make it as convenient and efficient as possible.

Organizing Your Garage Pantry

When deciding how to organize your garage storage space with custom solutions, consider using the following strategies for the best results.

• Work with a custom designer who’ll provide a free consultation and a proven process for designing, manufacturing, and installing your custom-designed garage and pantry.

• Incorporate custom cabinetry, a walk-in or reach-in pantry, or adjustable shelving for easily organizing and grouping like-sized items.

• Include chrome bins for organizing rice, beans, and other non-perishables and staples.

• Install helpful custom components that make food management easier, like slide-out drawers in your kitchen and garage pantries for spices and bulk sauce mixes. If you’re placing any of these items in the garage, drawers will help protect food from moisture. Placing in ziplock bags or other containers will further protect these items

• Ensure your garage and pantry area is pest-free and regularly treated for preventative maintenance.

• Keep your food away from water faucets and flammables like gasoline cans so there are no issues with humidity or loss of goods due to something catching on fire.

• Upgrade your reach-in pantry to include the most readily-accessible kitchen items and move other bulk foods and cooking tools that are not used as frequently to the garage pantry.

• Create an unloading zone. Transition your garage pantry into your one-stop place for unloading wholesale food items after your shopping excursion. This takes the frustration out of having to haul all of your groceries into your home.

Let this new garage pantry idea be your easy-access, incredibly time-saving extra pantry storage space that helps you feel empowered to buy and store bulk foods and larger pantry items to your heart’s content—without ever having to worry about overfilling your kitchen cabinets or pantry.

Customized Pantry Solutions

Whether you’re into wholesale clubs and buying on sale in bulk or if you’re just into good old-fashioned home organization, a pantry in your garage storage system can work wonders for providing additional storage space and for better organizing your pantry goods.

Then, you don’t have to stress each time you come home from a superstore about where to place all of your items. You can simply enjoy a functional, organized, garage pantry ready for the unloading.

If you’d like support with putting a pantry in your garage, we’re happy to share the design expertise you need for your best custom-designed solution. Contact us to find out more about our custom pantry options—or, feel to schedule a free design consultation today.

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