Pantry Organization

One of our favorite things about our house is the walk in pantry.  We fell in love with it the first time we saw the house.  And we still love it.  I think it will be a very high priority for our next house as well.  However, we did not love the state of our pantry.  Over the years, it has become full & cluttered.  Such a nice big space - how in the world is it overflowing with stuff?

A few months ago, I stumbled across a blogger who reorganized her pantry.  Her pantry resembles ours in several ways & I fell in love with her results.  I started gathering a few tools with the goal of tackling our pantry organization - a basket for chips & whatnot, some plastic bins for the floor (I wanted to use wire baskets like she did but didn't find any), square canisters (asked for these for Christmas & I love them!) & an expand-a-shelf for cans.

Last weekend, I sent Alex to my parents' house & set out to finish this project.  It was a daunting task & I got overwhelmed several times.  Luckily, Michael decided to help & we didn't even get into many arguments (ha).  We took a break to buy a few more baskets & grab lunch.  Finally, we were done!

I guess I'll start with the before pictures.  I'll apologize in advance.  These make me cringe - especially since I now know the potential of our pantry.  How did we let it become this:

*Shudder*  Ok, please erase that from your memory.  It's not how I want to be remembered.  Instead, think of me like these pictures - organized, clean & put together.

Much better!  I still need to get two more black bins, for some more miscellaneous items, & to put labels on the canisters but overall, I am so happy with the result.  Plus, we've actually made places for things so we know where new stuff goes.  I think that's one of the most important aspects of organizing - setting up a system, so you can keep the space looking good.

For anyone wondering, the canisters & expand-a-shelf were from the Container Store, the stackable black bins were from Walmart & the baskets were from Target.

My next organization project?  Paper files - ugh.  I found this post to motivate me.  My goal is to tackle this in the next month or two.  We'll see...  For now I think I'll just enjoy my lovely pantry.  J