The Unexpected Kitchen Essential Martha Stewart Uses To Protect Her Pantry's Shelves

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Martha Stewart is the queen of home decor, amazing recipes, and gardening tips. One thing she is also known for is her handy home hacks. Many of Stewart's best tips can help you have a cleaner kitchen and pantry, and she always seems to have tricks that are realistic and down-to-earth enough that even the average homeowner can do them. So, when Stewart revealed that she and her staff lined her butler's pantry shelves with something as simple as freezer paper, we were certain it would work just as well in any food pantry.

While the majority of us don't have fancy butler's pantries or Baccarat crystal to worry about, many of us do have food pantries, and the food pantry of most homes is one place that can quickly become a bit chaotic. When you're storing canned goods, pasta, rice, oils, honey, and baking items on shelves, it can quickly become disorganized, and spills often happen. Even if you choose the best type of shelving for your kitchen pantry, they can become damaged over time. That's why Stewart's freezer paper shelving hack is a smart idea, and if it's good enough for her expensive China and her cypress wood butler's pantry, it's the perfect solution for your home. Not to mention it's a frugal alternative to sticky shelf liners that can cause damage to your pantry shelves if you ever have to replace them.

Pantry shelves can become damaged from moisture caused by spills or by heavy cans scratching and denting them. While there are many affordable solutions to keep pantry clutter at bay, keeping your pantry shelves protected can involve buying pricey liners. If you have a lot of items in your pantry, these liners can wear out and cost more money due to replacing them. That's why Stewart's freezer paper hack is such a great idea. You can easily line each shelf multiple times with a single roll at a fraction of the cost of traditional shelf liners.

Freezer paper also works well as a shelf liner because of the way it is made. It's composed of a sturdy paper with a plastic-coated underside. Not only can it protect your shelves from spills, but it can prevent oil from seeping through as well. Another great thing is that freezer paper doesn't have the adhesive that traditional shelf liners do, meaning you won't have to worry about sticky residue being left behind when you have to replace it.

To implement this hack, remove everything from your pantry shelves, clean them off, and make sure they are completely dry before adding the freezer paper. Cut the freezer paper to the size of your shelves and set your pantry items back in their usual place. If a spill happens, you can wipe the paper clean, and if it's too big of a mess simply remove, toss, and replace. If Martha Stewart trusts it with her expensive cypress wood butler's pantry, you can trust it with yours.