Pantry Organization

Will discovered he could open our doors recently, and his favorite to open is the pantry.  (Who can blame him?)  It wouldn't be quite as annoying much of a problem if he didn't take everything out that he could reach and then line them up on the coffee table.  After several days of playing this game with him, I finally stopped putting everything back in the pantry and just left it out on the counter. 

My pantry started to look like this.

Yikes!!

I decided it was time for some serious organization to take place.

Wayne went out of town for a week, and I knew it was my chance to make some major changes.  I immediately consulted a blog I follow I Heart Organzing.  I found inspiration from one of her posts as well as this one from Hi Sugarplum.  (I can't remember how I found her blog, but I'm thankful I did!)

I scheduled my mom to watch Will for me one day and off I went to Ikea, The Container Store, Home Depot, Target, Walmart and BuyBuy Baby (for childproof door locks!).  I came home and started with emptying the pantry completely and placing the items in categories.  It definitely got worse before it got better!

The worst part about it, though, was the obscene amount of food I had to throw out because it was expired.  This pic doesn't include the canned goods...

But the end result was totally worth the hours it took to get things looking organized!

The only thing I still need to do is label the baskets.  I got the food containers at Ikea, the door hanger at Walmart, and the baskets/storage bins from Target.  I'm going to use Megan's silhouette to make my labels, so I might do an updated post when I got those made. :) 

The best part about it is that I can actually see how much of what foods we have.  Since I coupon now, I often buy multiples of things like canned goods, cereal, Ziploc bags, etc.  Our overflow is in our laundry room, but I can keep a better eye on what is actually needed.  (Wayne considers cereal as a food group, so we always have a LOT.  and lots of different kinds.)

While I was at it, my spice cabinet needed a major overhaul as well.  I was often guilty of throwing a spice back in the cabinet and shutting the door quickly, hoping it wouldn't fall back out.  Not to mention, I couldn't reach anything!

So my trip to Ikea included buying a stool at the recommendation of my friend Jenny.  It's probably my most-used purchase from the whole reorganization project.

Again, the amount of expired spices I had in my cabinet was shameful!

I couldn't have been happier with the outcome.  Again, I'm waiting on my Flour and Sugar labels for my new jars, but I'm in love with how easy it is to see things now!

I got a spice rack riser and spice packet basket at The Container store and the jars at Walmart.

I even have an empty space that I still don't know how to fill!  And I'm happy to report that a few months later, both the pantry and spice cabinet still look this nice and neat.

One last time...

Pantry Before

Pantry After

Spice cabinet before

 

Spice cabinet after

Hooray for organized living!