- Ahhh! Staple, staple, staple. A separate shelf for chips. (laughs) Are you kidding me? That's why it has it's own shelf. Hi, I'm Megan Batoon and welcome to my home. Today, Good Housekeeping asked me to take you on a tour of my kitchen pantry and show you all of the ways that I've organized my things to my personal taste. And without further ado, let's get into it. This is my starter home, so I didn't want to put too much money into it. I wanted the custom look, but I didn't want the custom price tags. So I ended up doing a lot of it myself and these originally were dark MDF cabinets. And I do not like those at all. In the design world, it is a absolute sin to have those. So I refinished it with a limewash, gives me a lot of texture. It's got so much personality. When people say that these are white cabinets, I get visibly upset. They are not. They are light wash. This is the best detail ever, I think. Initially these were two separate cabinet doors. We had our uppers and our lowers. I connected them with this red oak inlay. We added beech wood handles with gold details. ♪But the best part of it all♪ is when you open it, ♪ you literally feel like you're a queen, about to feast. Ahhh! Are you kidding me? The thing is, I didn't have to hire a contractor. I didn't have to hire any designer. I am the designer. I am the contractor. You can do it alone. So starting from the top - I'm only 5'4, so I never really am able to reach these anyway. So I ended up putting decorative elements. We have some cookbooks, we have marble bookends and then some glassware. I really love having decoration in places that you wouldn't normally expect it, because it just makes it more interesting. This is my Asian shelf. I'm half Filipino. So this is all of my materials that I need to make chicken adobo. So we have three different types of rice. And then we've got some Asian sauces. We have rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, ponzu, fish sauce. We love. Staple, staple staple. Speaking of staples. Now we go down to what's directly in my eyesight. This is the stuff that we use the most often. So we have our olive oils, coconut oil, black truffle oil, and oh, I also have some cheese knives and a really beautiful green mortar and pestle. I think it's so interesting to add in a few design elements where you wouldn't normally expect decoration, like a pantry, but it adds so much. These are all of my dry goods. I like to have everything in glass jars with wooden bamboo tops, because it makes it feel natural, it's sustainable and I can easily see what I'm working with. So we have a lot of our nuts. This is usually for charcuterie boards and couscous, lentils, quinoa, and granola. I eat granola every single day and I actually bring my bowl of yogurt all the way here. And since this is such an easy height for me, I just open it up, pour it. And then I have my flax seed, chia seed mix. And then just put that on. I don't even use my kitchen counters. I use this because it's functional and beautiful. Down here we have sauces that I use more sparingly. These are on two twin lazy Susans. Love a lazy Susan, especially for organizing. I like that I have turned out all the labels or the names so that when I'm spinning it, it's like a little "That '70s Show" homage, but like with exactly what I can see. So I don't have to - It's just the easiest way, like, I don't have to think at all. I really love these for holding smaller quantities of things. This is kind of like, not necessarily a back stock, but we don't often use these things, but I like how tiny these are, because it just solidifies, "This is oatmeal." Got it. Like I'm just talking to myself, making my life easier with how I design things. Generally, my biggest challenge with staying organized is the act of staying organized. But what I've realized is, if you design something so perfect for your personal life, it's so much easier to keep it organized. If you do design something that's beautiful, that you like to use, it's user-friendly, it's accessible, then it's so much easier to have everything have its own place and nothing is out of bounds. Deduction, if something is out of bounds. If I had to choose one thing to do to your pantry in order to make your life, one, easier, but also make you feel so much better when you use it, is spice jars that are labeled and to your liking. I love it so much. I've tried so many different things of working with labeling spices, and this is by far, not only my favorite, but it just makes it streamlined. Speaking of streamlined and my favorite things, this is my salt rack. I love salt so much. I think sodium is my favorite food. And these are the different types of salts that I've collected did over the world. So we have finishing salt. My favorite finishing salt is Maldon Sea Salt, staple. Core sea salt for your cocky, Pink Himalayan Salt, Norwegian Sea Rock that I think I got in Finland, and fine sea salt. (sighs) I love salt. That's what it has its own shelf. I think this might be my favorite part of the entire thing. I lied. The time that I said that the spice jars were my favorite, I lied. This is my favorite. This is a basket from Studio McGee's collection at Target. (Aah) I think it works so well in this space, because you don't often see really beautiful things in pantries, right? Like you're used to seeing this type of stuff. We see clear things all the time. We don't normally they see something that should be displayed, not displayed. And I think that's what's so exciting. It's like a little treat for yourself. You open up something to reveal beauty. Beauty's on the inside, also in pantries. This is my, probably the main food source that I have now. I really just love chips. for some reason. And I love having specifically, Sea Salt and Vinegar. I don't know why I don't have like six bags of this, because I go through these like one a day. We have different types of chips for any feeling that I'm having, but this is the chip basket. It's also a separate shelf for chips. (laughs) I also have another one of these baskets down here for all of the kind of more staple foods that I don't ever use unless I have company over. Or if maybe like, someone doesn't know how to cook rice or doesn't want to cook rice because honestly, same. And so we have like quick foods here, canned foods, just stuff that we need, maybe. On the other side, heavier machinery, we have the Vitamix and the KitchenAid. These are heavier. So I put them as close to the ground as possible. Also, I want to use them more. So I figure if I display them, then I'll use them. Up here, I also, seldom bake. So I have all of my baking ingredients here in jars that I got from Ikea years ago. And they came in handy. I really like seeing them, but I don't use them very much. I'm a cook. I'm not a baker, because I can't follow rules. Here is where we have our cereal. I don't have any kids yet. So when I do, I'm sure that this entire thing is going to be cereal. But as of right now, it's just me. So we've got our Apple Jacks and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, the best two cereals besides French Toast Crunch, but they like discontinued it. (sighs) Anyway. Some paper towels. And I guess that's it. Thank you so much for watching. Subscribe to Good Housekeeping and make sure to follow me on Instagram @MeganBatoon for more lifestyle and design. And I'll meet you there. (upbeat music)