Look at This Coat Closet Turned into a Pantry!

Would you rather have a closet full of very organized baking supplies and snacks than one packed with coats and winter gear? We would! That’s why we love this smart project from Diane Henkler, the blogger behind In My Own Style. She moved her family’s coat collection into the garage to make room for something much better: a fully organized and labeled pantry. Take a look at what she did —this is so inspiring.

Here’s Diane’s pantry — it’s hard to imagine it was ever a coat closet — but the closet size and shape were perfectly suited to transforming into a pantry. Because the closet was originally meant for coats, the shelves are just 12 inches deep, which is deep enough to hold stuff, but not too much stuff. This means that ingredients don’t get lost and money doesn’t get wasted.

Once all the shelves were in place, Diane got to work organizing everything by category and size. For example, bigger items went on the floor and all the baking stuff went together.

And it turns out that a coat closet is actually better than a traditional pantry: “The double doors allow you to see everything in one full swoop when you open them,” says Diane. “Big items are easy to move in and out. Makes it easy to organize, restock, create a shopping list by just glancing, and keeping like things together.”

See more pics of the project: How I Transformed a Coat Closet Into a Pantry at In my Own Style

Pantries to Pin is a new column on our site! While many of us could only ever dream of having a pantry this nice (or at all!), the column is meant to give you inspiration and fodder for your Pinterest board. You might even get some ideas to steal for your own kitchen.