A Seamless Move-In Pantry for Cara Loren

Moving into a new home is exciting but it can also feel overwhelming, especially for a busy family balancing work, kids, and everyday life. When influencer Cara Loren began preparing for her move into a beautiful new home, she wanted the transition to feel seamless and calm from day one. That’s where Reset Your Nest came in.

A few days before the move, we spent time in Cara’s new home helping transform her pantry into a space that was fully stocked, beautifully organized, and ready to support her family’s daily routines the moment they walked in the door. And we didn’t just make it pretty! A Reset Your Nest organized pantry is about making life easier.

Cara Loren's Pantry

Designing a Pantry Around Real Life

One of the things we love most about projects like this is that they start long before we begin organizing shelves. Before the move, we worked with Cara to design her pantry and create a comprehensive shopping list of the products and foods her family uses most often. Creating that list included looking through the things she already had so we could create a seamless design and functional systems that would be guaranteed to last. As we got to know Cara and her family, our team was able to fully understand the habits and needs of her children, Cara’s personal routine, how her family prepares food, and plan their pantry with intention. 

A Pantry With Character

This pantry was especially fun to design because of its unique layout and beautiful design details. The space is a narrow galley-style pantry with stunning design elements throughout:

• Deep green paint that creates a rich backdrop

• Patterned tile floors that add personality

• A blend of closed cabinetry, glass-front cabinets, and open shelving

• Beautiful white shelving supported by brass posts

• A charming rolling ladder with bamboo accents

We leaned into these fun design elements and embraced a mixed-material palette that complemented the room’s finishes:

• Black accents to tie into the hardware and tile

• Bamboo bins to coordinate with the ladder

• Cane baskets to add warmth and texture

One of our favorite details was incorporating cane elements. Cara’s dining room chairs feature cane backs, and the mudroom lockers include a similar woven detail, so adding cane baskets in the pantry subtly connects the spaces throughout the home. It’s those thoughtful details that make an organized space feel beautifully elevated, not just functional.

Strategic Pantry Zones

Once the aesthetic direction was established, we focused on what matters most: how the pantry works for the family. Every Reset Your Nest pantry is designed around zones, which allow each category of food to live in a dedicated area. This makes it easier to cook, restock, and maintain the system long-term. For Cara’s family, we created several key zones:

1. Kids’ Snack Zone

With young children in the home, easy snack access was a priority. We used clear containers and drawer organizers to create a kid-friendly snack area where items like crackers, Goldfish, and Cheez-Its are easy to see and grab. The canisters were stored on the counter for accessibility to help Cara’s kids be independent.

2. Breakfast Zone

Busy mornings require quick options. Having everything grouped together makes mornings smoother and faster. We created a dedicated breakfast section with easy breakfast items:

• Cereal in dispensers

• Oatmeal & granola drawer

• Fruit baskets

3. Baking Zone

The baking zone includes ingredients Cara uses regularly for family recipes and entertaining. Glass canisters with bamboo lids were used to decant staples like:

• Flour

• Sugar

• Powdered sugar

• Chocolate chips

Decanting baking ingredients into airtight containers keeps them fresh while also making them easy to measure and grab. The KitchenAid sits right below the decanted backing goods and all backstock and additional baking ingredients are in the drawer directly beneath the KitchenAid and bread box.

4. Dinner & Grain Zone

For weeknight meals, we created a dinner zone that houses decanted pantry staples such as:

• Quinoa

• Brown rice

• White rice

Other dinner items like pastas, and sauces are found in nearby bins while easy dinners like mac and cheese are in a drawer for easier kid access. Grouping dinner ingredients together helps simplify meal prep and planning.

5. Smoothie & Supplement Zone

Cara prioritizes wellness, so we designed a dedicated area for her daily nutrition routine. This zone includes neatly decanted containers for:

• Protein powders

• Greens

• Collagen

• Colostrum

• Pre-workout

• L-glutamine

• Chia seeds

• PB Fit

Keeping these items together makes it easy to build smoothies or other drinks without opening every drawer and cabinet. The decanted supplements are so beautiful! All of the backstock drink packets live in the drawer right below the canisters on display. The last thing Cara needed for making her smoothie and drinks was her beautiful SMEG blender, which is why we gave it a home on the counter near the supplements.

The Power of Decanting

Decanting is one of the most impactful elements of a well-designed pantry. The most important principle of decanting is intentionally deciding which items you are using consistently enough that it makes sense to put it in a new container for function, aesthetic, and maintaining freshness.

For Cara’s pantry, we used a mix of glass and plastic containers, depending on the item. Glass containers with bamboo lids were used for staple ingredients to create a clean, elevated look while keeping food fresh. Canisters with black lids were used for snack foods that kids access frequently. This combination balances beauty, durability, and practicality.

Smart Storage Details

Beyond the shelves themselves, thoughtful storage solutions helped maximize the space.

We incorporated:

• Bamboo drawer dividers for smaller pantry items

• Acrylic organizers to group smaller packages in the deep drawers

• Black mesh baskets for contrast and airflow in the glass front cabinets.

• Turntables for easy access in deeper cabinets and to store spreads and honey and also oils and vinegars

• Minimalist labels for clear categorization

Labeling is one of the final steps in our process, but it’s essential. When every item has a clearly labeled home, maintaining the system becomes much easier. We used a mixture of modern white pantry labels on canisters and custom black on clear and white on black 24mm label tape with our favorite Brother P-Touch Cube Plus labeler.

Ready Before Move-In Day

One of the biggest benefits of organizing a pantry before moving day is that it removes a huge amount of stress. Instead of opening boxes and trying to figure out where everything goes, Cara’s family walked into a home where the pantry was fully stocked and beautifully organized from the start. It’s the difference between feeling overwhelmed and feeling settled.

The Reset Your Nest Approach

Projects like this are a perfect example of how thoughtful organization supports real life. By combining intentional design, strategic zoning, and curated product planning, we create spaces that are not only beautiful, but incredibly functional for the families who live in them. We are so grateful we were able to help Cara Loren Van Brocklin get settled in her beautiful new pantry so the rest of her move experience could be more streamlined and stress free.

Planning a move or looking to reset your pantry? At Reset Your Nest, we specialize in move-in organization, pantry design, and fully stocked homes so your space is ready from day one.

Jen is the founder of Reset Your Nest, a Professional Home Organizing Business in Utah (servicing Salt Lake City, Park City, Ogden, Alpine, Highland, Mapleton, and St. George). She loves creating order and systems out of chaos and is known for bringing a beautiful aesthetic as well as easy to maintain function to any space. She shares her tips and tricks on Instagram @reset_your_nest.