What do you think of when you hear Shea McGee? You may think of her Netflix show, stunning online store, or collaboration with Target. I immediately think of class, style, and a keen eye for detail. I feel that every space Shea touches is magic, so when she invited us to organize her home, I couldn't believe my luck. We've already shared how we organized her craft room and laundry room, and today I wanted to walk you through her pantry transformation.
Shea McGee's Pantry Transformation
The McGee's already had some great systems set up in their pantry. Their pantry was organized by zones and they took advantage of labeling and containers. What our team wanted to focus on was creating a more cohesive look, reorganizing the zones to better suit the family's needs, and decanting (removing packaging) from more cluttered areas.
You can see the overall transformation from the before below, but I want to walk you through each area and share exactly what we did and what products we used.
BEFORE
AFTER
Snack Drawer Organization
What I loved so much about the pantry were the built-in drawers. We perfected the snack system that Shea had already set up in these drawers. She did an awesome job of having drawer dividers in place, so we built on that momentum.
We layered the snack drawers into sections and kept the bamboo drawer dividers. The biggest change we made was standing the snack bags by category. This is such an easy change that you could do at home - and it required no extra product!
BEFORE
AFTER
Nut Organization
Shea had previously kept her nuts and other healthy snacks in one of the above drawers. We wanted to make these snacks more visibly accessible for the whole family, so we transitioned them to a shelf in the pantry.
One important thing we did here was removed as much packaging as possible and moved the nuts into airtight OXO containers. You'll see on the shelf below we added excess packaging into wooden crates. Having the bags organized and handy to the clear containers made sense in this scenario, because the containers will need to be refilled often.
BEFORE
AFTER
Can Organization
One thing that Shea had already done really well was grouped canned food together and added overflow to an acrylic bin. This kept things tidy on the shelf. After discussing and mapping the pantry with the McGee's we realized that this section was taking up valuable real estate on visible shelves in the pantry. These aren't everyday items, so we moved them to a cupboard inside of the pantry, and used this space for the nuts shown above.
Inside the cupboard, we used easy-glide acrylic bins at the right height for the objects inside. Having the cans fit perfectly inside the bin made such an aesthetic difference! We used taller, larger acrylic bins for bulkier glass jars of pizza and pasta sauce and dressings.
We also added a shelf riser for other cans on the bottom shelf, so it's easy to see what products are on hand and prevent overbuying.
BEFORE
AFTER
Protein and Supplement Organization
We kept this zone of the pantry in the same location but removed all of the bulky packaging to create a more aesthetically pleasing look.
First, we moved all powdered supplements to OXO-sealed containers with clear labels. Don't forget to add the scoops to these jars too! Above the powdered containers, we added acrylic bins with protein bars, supplements, and drink mix-ins.
BEFORE
AFTER
Baking Organization
Removing things like flour, sugar, seeds, and other baking supplies from their packaging was a great step the McGee's made in their pantry. Because there were already so many OXO containers, we wanted to switch up the look and add some dimension to the pantry shelves.
We added baking supplies to clear cylinder containers with wooden tops. You'll see in the corner we added some rotating lazy susans to place spreads, jars, and other items. Lazy susans are great to place in corners because it utilizes that awkward space.
BEFORE
AFTER
Paper Supply Organization
There were a few drawers in the pantry dedicated to party supplies like paper plates, napkins, straws, and utensils. I love the progress we made in this space!
We used acrylic drawer dividers to organize these paper products. We removed the cardboard boxes that usually contain plastic silverware and organized them by category. We did the same with napkin wrapping.
BEFORE
AFTER
Did you love this pantry as much as we did? It was such a treat to help the McGee family create a beautiful and useful space. You can shop this post for everything we used in Shea's pantry so you can shop for your own space.
Jen is the founder of Reset Your Nest, a Professional Home Organizing business in Utah (Salt Lake City, Park City, Ogden, Logan, Utah County, and St. George), California (Bay Area, Los Gatos, Hillsborough, Atherton, San Jose), Denver, CO, and Phoenix, AZ. She loves creating order and systems out of chaos. Her specialty is finding a way to continue the aesthetic of any home to every cupboard and drawer. She shares her tips and tricks on Instagram @reset_your_nest.
