When it comes to rustic and modern farmhouse decor, it is now commonplace to find bar carts put to use in all sorts of creative ways where they’re both attractive and practical. How, you might ask? By using them as mobile kitchen storage!
A few reasons you might consider utilizing a bar cart as food storage are:
- Practicality: create additional food storage when you have a small pantry (or don’t have one at all)
- Convenience: Use a bar cart to hold ingredients and supplies you may need while cooking meals
- Mobility: Just wheel them out of the way when they aren’t needed
- Decoration: When properly organized and labeled, they can add charm to your kitchen
If you decide to use a bar cart as a mobile pantry, just have fun with it! If it’s going to be resting in a place where your guests will see it, be sure to style its contents and decorate it for a fun twist on your kitchen decor.
Here’s how to get rolling with a kitchen pantry bar cart for your farmhouse style home:
Organize its Contents with Storage and Labels
When using a bar cart (whether it’s for its intended purpose or not) it’s important to have it well-organized. Without incorporating smaller storage elements onto its shelves like jars or baskets, your cart will quickly become a jumbled mess.
A big trend in farmhouse decor is to store and organize ingredients like flour, sugar, or even other foods like cookies and pasta is by putting them in storage jars, baskets, or other containers. You could keep small kitchen utensils like bottle openers or zesters in smaller bins. And you can even keep dish towels in a pretty basket so that it’s just within reach while you cook or clean the kitchen.
Additionally, labeling each storage element adds to the cart’s organization and gives it a more attractive appearance. To help you with storage, we’ve created this free printable with adorable tags so you can keep your cart items labeled and lovely!
Give it a Designated Theme
So, you’ve decided to begin utilizing a bar cart for your farmhouse kitchen. How, exactly, do you decide which items will go onto the cart? Perhaps the easiest way to decide what to put on your cart is by giving it one designated theme.
Some possible uses for your cart could be:
- Pasta and sauces: If your family is big on bucatini and crazy about cannelloni, it’s likely that pasta and sauce jars are taking up quite a bit of space in your pantry.
- Baking supplies: Do you love to bake? If so, we wouldn’t be surprised to find copious amounts of flour, sugar, rolling pins, cookie cutters, and decorative ingredients in your kitchen!
- Kids snacks: If you’ve got growing kiddos in the house, “Mom, I’m hungry!” is probably something you hear several times a day. Consider offering pre-selected and pre-measured snacks to hold them over until dinner.
- Spices and other seasonings: A simple spice rack simply won’t do for culinary fanatics. If you love to be in the kitchen, you’ve probably collected a large quantity of spices and seasonings of all sorts, all of which take up a lot of space.
All of these elements could go onto a bar cart, thereby clearing up valuable space in your cabinets and pantry. One of our favorite bar carts can be found here.
Give each shelf its own “job”
Maybe you don’t have that many spices or baking supplies, but still need to put a bar cart to good use in your kitchen. Another great way to organize your cart is by giving each shelf its own “job.”
For example, you could use the top shelf to place taller jars of sugar, flour, and cooking oils; the second shelf could be your spice rack or your pasta storage; you could then use the bottom shelf to store lesser-used (but still necessary) items like recipe books or even aprons and oven mitts.
There are so many farmhouse decorating ideas to take advantage of. And when using bar carts, the possibilities are endless! The key is to determine which items take up the most space in your kitchen and then finding a practical and attractive way to organize those items onto a cart.
Do you use a bar cart in your kitchen? How do you decorate and organize it?
