Where do you store home canned items?

[barnyardfun]

I am really running into an issue here. Not a bad one mind you but and issue none the less.

This year I have canned probably 5 times the amount of stuff in the years past. I used to just store my home canned items along with my other pantry staples. BUT we moved and my pantry is more of a closet and there is NO ROOM!

Right now I have my jars in the laundry room, which is the only place with much room left. But I am worried because the laundry room has lots of windows. It does have central heat/air and has stayed fairly cool in there this summer. I have not gone through a winter in this house yet but am worried about the fact that we will use wood heating instead of central heat (I don't know how much heat will get back there).

I was thinking of covering the shelves with a sheet to keep it darker.......I just don't know! I sure would hate to ruin all my hard work!

What do you do?

[barnyardfun]

I meant to post this in Countryside Familes but I am sure you guys can help me just the same! Sorry it it's not really 'homesteady'.

[Callieslamb]

I have a room in the basement - a closet in the laundry room and raised beds. I must say that I like the shelves in the basement the best, since those items are easiest to get to. You have to use what you have.

Congrats on all that canned food and having the problem of where to store it!!!!

[mosepijo]

I need help too. I don't even have a closet.

I have it stacked everywhere. I guess I will have to start draping fabric over it and calling it a nightstand. (Except I don't even have room for a night stand.)

[Old Vet]

Put a sheet over them and that will block the light from getting to them. What happened to the boxes that the jars came in? I have stored them in the boxes for several years until the boxes wore out then I put them in similar boxes to keep the sun out.

[Beeman]

We keep the jars in the original boxes stacked up. Prevents breakage and light. Just label the box and use it as backstock like a supermarket instead of having all of those jars loose.

[Old Swampgirl]

The backporch to my house had been closed in many yrs. ago & a small bathroom(my only one), built on one side & a small room on the other side. This past summer I finally made that little room into a pantry where I can store my canned goods. It has no window so I don't have to worry about the sunlight. Prior to this I kept the jars in the boxes they came in & had them stashed all over the house.

[DW]

My sister keeps all her's in boxes. She uses the cardboard file boxes. She has a whole wall of them.

[Ozarkquilter46]

my dad use to put them in a boxs lable the box in bold black marker then slip the boxes under the beds in the house. There is always room under there, its dark the bedrooms were cooler as the main heat source was in the living room. So we had lots of room for can goods

[Wolf mom]

Not a lot of storage room here, and no air conditioning. This year I've canned more than I ever have, so I think I'll be putting up shelves in my cement block pump house as it's cooler there in the summer and I have to keep it from freezing in the winter.

[Ravenlost]

Originally Posted by Ozarkquilter46

my dad use to put them in a boxs lable the box in bold black marker then slip the boxes under the beds in the house. There is always room under there, its dark the bedrooms were cooler as the main heat source was in the living room. So we had lots of room for can goods

That's where my mom stores hers.

I have a closet in my laundry room that I installed floor to ceilings shelves in so I'd have a place to store mine.

[hotzcatz]

We made some of the siding on the wall hinged so the jars fit between the wall studs. Some shelves were put in just the height of a jar and we can stash a lot of them in there.

[Ode]

I keep mine in the basement. I bought some good sturdy stainless steel racks from Sam's Club to hold it all. What I like about them is they hold a lot of weight on each shelf and don't warp out of shape.

[NCLee]

How about this......

Build an upside down "U" shaped sofa table to go behind the couch. Basically it's a 3 sided box with 1/4" plywood across the back of the U to give stability. Make it the depth of a box of canning jars. Length/height equal to the back of the sofa. Put furniture glides on the sofa legs.

Pull out the sofa, stack boxes of jars under the "table". Push the sofa back into place. Use the top of the sofa table for lamps, display objects or whatever you'd normally put on them.

(A) Gives additonal storage. (B) No one knows what's back there.

If you don't have boxes, use heavy duty cardboard or 1/4" plywood between layers of jars, so you can stack them. Quarts on the bottom, pints on top. To maintain the "stack", replace full jars with empty ones - with rings. Thus, this gives a place to store empties, too. You may have to re-stack a couple of times a year to keep everything stable and to access full jars in the back underneath something else.

This concept can also be used to store other things, including 5 gallon buckets, #10 cans, or whatever that'll fit behind the sofa.

This concept can be taken 1 step further. Instead of a sofa table, build floor to ceiling "bookcases" to fit behind the sofa. Make multiple bookcases. (1) Need to limit the span of each shelf, according to the materials used, to keep them from sagging. (2) Makes them easier to move, without tearing apart, if the need arises.

You can make as many as is need to span a wider space than the back of the sofa. The area behind the sofa and below view can be used for storage as mentioned above. The area in view can be used for books, decorative items, and decorative boxes that contain even more stored goods. Who said you couldn't put boxes of canning lids or Jello in a "pretty" box in a bookcase?

Food for thought.........

Lee