Our Farmhouse Food Storage

Okay, so I've had a few requests about food storage.  How do we store our bulk food items?  I don't have this down to a science...so if you have any suggestions, feel free to give them. 

I know certain family members are going to roll their eyes when they see I'm posting pictures of my pantry and root cellar....but if you (pretend) you really care, maybe that will shut them up.  So, help me please...and tell me you are excited to see our food storage.

Anyway, on to the food storage piece.

This old door used to be a side entrance.  Walk through the door, it appears it used to be a coat closet.  At some point, they built this marvelous three seasoned porch and slapped some insulation behind the door.  Now it's a door to no where that doesn't open.  My husband mentioned something about using the space behind it for coats when we first moved in...but oh no...this wife of his had already secretly redirected the coats to another closet.  You see, I was dreaming about a walk in pantry...squeeeee!  Yes, our current coat closet is waaay out of the way, but I have a pantry.  A walk in pantry, did I mention that? 
 So, onto storage.  Free for your judging pleasure. It's not perfect, but it's a work in progress.Mason jars hold much of the smaller quantities I have bought in bulk.  I need to figure out a better way to label so I don't have to rely on smelling everything for identification.
I have a couple plastic totes (Christmas ones) to hold the 50 pound bags of flour/oats. I moved some shelving in to organize the rest. 
 I have four glass pickle jars from my husband's restaurant days filled with rice.
 It's a cold enough pantry to hold some produce and maple syrup.

 And potatoes and sugar. 
 I guess the coat hooks are good for something....clearly not coats.

 Now...the marvelous thing about this place is there's a root cellar too.  Although old house basements give the heebie jeebies (I have no clue why), I spend little time organizing it down there.
 I wish I would have taken some pictures when the shelves were fuller of my home canned stuff...but there is still a bunch left.

 You can see how much space there is....plenty of room for 6 quart jars deep.

And I picture in the space below the cans to be some crates of squash, pumpkins potatoes and the like with this garden I'm dreaming of planting.

 Behind that insulation is a window that opens for temperature control.  Only I wish there weren't pipes right there too.

 Also, there's a floor to ceiling storage area on the side....filled with canning jars they left for us.  Must get busy!
 So there you have it...storage in this farmhouse.  Dried goods in the pantry.  Canned goods and likely root cellar type veggies eventually in the basement?  Suggestions for improvement, anyone?  And remember...tell me you cared about my pantry.  I said someone would care.  Prove me right.




9 comments:

  1. Looks like it's working for you! I saw a label maker at Big Lots for $13 yesterday.

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  2. This is awesome!!!!!!!!!!! I wish we had something besides coat closets or a freezing garage!. As for labeling, would you consider chalk board paint and a chalk board paint marker? Easy, cheap, and reusable - trendy, too.

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  3. Root cellar envy, here! lol I love it! And I love the fact that you are interested in canning at your tender age :-)

    You asked for advice and the thing I thought of immediately, though I didn't see any in your root cellar, is that apples need their own room when storing long term.

    I don't mean the 5 pounds you have in the pantry for every day consumption ... I'm talking about storing 40 or 50 lbs. or more. They shouldn't be stored with other produce because apples give off a gas that makes the other produce age quicker.

    You can tell your family about the root cellar envy. :-)

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  4. I've been having fun with etching glass for labels :)

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  5. Wow, this is awesome! I love all the canned items in your basement. Looks like you've got plenty of food to last if the zombie apocalypse comes! Haha.

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  6. Amazing! I'm quite jealous of your food storage space, I have one closet turned pantry with shelving, and it's overflowing. I also need to be better about using what we have though. I love the root cellar, makes me wish I knew how to can, not that I can grow a garden to HAVE things to can, but you get what I mean.

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  7. Jackie, Do you have any chalkboard paint? I've made "labels" for my glass jars by taping off a section on the front of the jar, and also painting a small circle on the lid. I've reused a number of storebought jars for this purpose, and then just chalk on the name of the item. Then you can change if need be, it's cute, and you don't have all that sticky from the sticker lable on it!

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  8. Since canning jar lids need to replaced with the new season, I write on them with a sharpie then if the jar is reused say for dry beans, then I cut a paper circle to cover and double stick tape it on. :)

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  9. I write on the bottom of my mason jars with a Sharpie marker. It will wash off if need be.

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