Narrow Pantry Organization: Tall, Slim and Awkward Spaces

A narrow pantry has plenty of volume and very little of it within easy reach. The shelves are barely wider than a cereal box, the space runs from the floor to above your head, and anything pushed to the back disappears behind whatever arrived after it.

Narrow pantry organization works by accepting the shape. You cannot spread food out sideways, so you arrange it upward and front to back, and you make each shelf do one job. The same ideas apply whether you have a slim cupboard or a pull-out unit.

Two kinds of narrow pantry

Most slim pantries are one of two types, and it helps to know which you are working with.

• A tall slim cupboard with fixed shelves. You reach in from the front through a narrow door. The difficulty is depth: the back of each shelf is hard to see and harder to reach.
• A pull-out unit. The whole pantry slides out of the cabinet run on runners, and you reach its shelves or baskets from both sides. Depth is no longer hidden, but the unit moves, so what you load and where matters more.

Both share three traits: little width per shelf, a great deal of height, and many levels. If your food lives in ordinary kitchen cabinets instead, the guide to setting up a kitchen cabinet pantry is the closer fit.

One category per shelf

In a wide pantry a shelf can hold three zones side by side. A narrow shelf cannot. Two categories squeezed next to each other end up as one category in front and another lost behind it.

So give each shelf a single zone: one for canned goods, one for pasta and grains, one for breakfast, one for snacks, one for baking. If you have more categories than shelves, combine the two smallest and keep them in two separate bins on the same shelf.

Within a shelf, use a single front-to-back row of each item. Three cans of the same soup go one behind the other, not side by side. You then know that whatever is at the front tells you what is behind it.

Build upward inside each shelf

Width is fixed, but the gap between shelves is often taller than the food on it. Three tools use that height:

• Square stackable containers. Square and rectangular containers sit flush against each other and the cupboard walls, where round ones leave gaps a narrow shelf cannot spare. Stack two of the same footprint and keep the food you use more on top.
• A narrow bin for packets. Sauce mixes, seasoning sachets and pouches go upright in a slim bin, filed like index cards, so you flick through them instead of digging through a pile.
• A narrow turntable, sometimes. A small turntable helps with bottles on a deep slim shelf, but only if it nearly fills the width. If it leaves wide empty corners, a pull-out bin uses the shelf better.

Measure the inside width of the cupboard before buying anything, and measure the door opening too. In a slim cupboard the door frame is often narrower than the shelf, and a bin has to pass through it. The guide to pantry baskets and bins covers sizes, handles and materials.

Assign shelves by height

With so many levels, where each zone goes matters more than in any other pantry. Use two questions for each category: how often do you reach for it, and how heavy is it?

• Between hip and eye level: the food you use most days.
• Below hip level: heavy items such as canned goods, bottles, and bags of rice or flour.
• Above eye level: light things used now and then, and light backstock, meaning unopened spares.
• The floor or lowest level: the heaviest and bulkiest items.

Loading a pull-out unit

A pull-out unit carries its whole load on runners, so treat it with a little more care than a fixed shelf.

• Heavy items low. Bottles, jars and cans go on the bottom levels, which keeps the unit steady as it slides.
• Stay within the stated load. The unit’s maker gives a load rating for the unit and often for each basket. Find it in the instructions and keep within it.
• Watch the height. A tall bottle or box that sticks up above its basket can catch on the level above or the cabinet frame as the unit closes. Check each level with the unit half shut.
• Use the rails. The side rails of each basket act as natural dividers.
• Keep loose items contained. Small packets slip through wire baskets and can jam the runners. Put them in a small bin or line the basket base.

The top shelf and the door

The top shelf of a tall slim cupboard is out of sight and out of reach, so make it one object: a light lidded bin with a handle. Fill it with light items, such as spare packets or party supplies, and lift the whole bin down when you need something. Loose items up there will be forgotten.

Keep a step stool close by, folded beside the pantry or in the next cabinet. Shelves are not built to be climbed, and a stool within reach removes the temptation.

The inside of the cupboard door, or the strip of wall beside it, can take a slim rack for light items such as packets and small jars. Check first that the door still closes against the shelves, and that the rack, its fixings and the door itself are rated for what you plan to hang there.

When it still feels too small

A narrow pantry rewards restraint. If a shelf needs two rows side by side to hold a category, there is more of that food than the space suits, and the answer is to keep less backstock or move it to another cabinet.

For broader ideas on working within a limited footprint, including what to store outside the pantry altogether, see the guide to small pantry organization.