From the Ridiculous to the Sublime

So anyone that knows me will read this post and think, "Am I at the right blog?" I am not known for my organizational skills. So I was most surprised when I got it in my head that I should reorganize our pantry. I was inspired by THIS post. Seriously if this post can inspire ME to take this project on then it will inspire ANYBODY! Now that I think about it this post could have had several different titles, "Enough is Enough", "How Did We Live Like This?", "Channeling My Inner OCD" or the one that kept popping into my head "Why did I buy so much stinkin' aluminum foil?" I tackled this problem area of our house for 2 reasons 1) for myself. I need some type of order in my life right now. Some type of order where 2 adorable children can't come behind me and mess it up (i.e. where there is a door that I can keep closed and 2) for my husband. I happen to marry a guy whose "Love Language" is acts of service. Which is a real bummer because I'm pretty lazy in that area. I would have rather his love language be gifts because I'm a rock star in that area but it's not. So this project was to show him my love in a sense. And as I got further into it I realized that this really was a labor of love. And I also realized that you don't need to spend gobs of money to get good storage. So with out further ado, the Before and After. And I must tell you don't be judgin' our before pictures. I really didn't realize it was this bad. But this will give you a good sense of the transformation that took place!

The Before Pantry in all its glory

Oh the Shame!Need I go on with the Before pics?I call this one "Holy snikeys we DO have a bottom floor to the pantry!"

And now I present to you our new and improved pantry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ain't it a thing of beauty? I bought 2 crates ($3 each at Walmart) to store chips on the left and another crate (not pictured) to store all of my baking stuff  that doesn't fall under the "staples" category.

Oh how I wanted about 20 of those lovely apothecary jars to put everything in and a label maker that would print out fancy labels...... BUT then I got over it and found another way.

My bro Burke gave us an amazing canister set for our wedding and its finally being put to excellent use. And the labels? Printed out on the computer and "laminated" with clear packing tape.

Here are all of the bulky cereal boxes that used to take up lots of space in our pantry.

New and Improved. I condensed it down to 3 cereals and found these awesome cereal storage containers at Walmart  for $3 each. No more labels at this point.  I was kind of freaking myself out. I had about 3 other cereals that were left over so I just rolled them up and put a clothespin on them to seal them and set them to the side of the containers.

I also used mason jars for storage. And that spaghetti container is actually for bread storage. Another Walmart find for $5.The kids snack shelf. A trifle bowl for their applesauce and fruit cups and those nifty cereal containers for their goldfish and animal crackers. I used that basket on the right for popcorn, nutrigrain bars and oatmeal packets. I love these containers. They were a $1.50 each at where else? I decided to just bite the bullet and throw away all of the spices that are expired. If you are like me this will free up ALOT of space and you will end up with not a whole lot of spices. ;)

After I was done with the pantry I decided to take the craziness up a notch and tackle our junk cabinet. Do you see all of the spices on the second row. Yeah most of those are gone now. Tackling this bad boy was liberating.

The glorious AFTER pic. At this point I was really scaring myself. But I didn't stop until I organized the 2 infamous junk drawers right below this cabinet. I do have to confess that the pantry transformation was made possible because I have alternate storage in our laundry room. I cleared out the 4 shelves in there (another amazing feat on its own trust me. I wouldn't put you through the before pics on that one) and used ONE shelf for canned goods and things like crackers and things that we don't use as often. I even have one empty shelf  just sitting there looking all pretty in its sparseness. I used the top for storing paper towels and toilet paper. And then another shelf for saran wrap, aluminum foil (I found 3 rolls! and I thought I had none! It's amazing what you will find.), zip loc bags, and garbage bags. On the same shelf I put all of our medicines. No more rifling through the junk cabinet (see above before pic) at 3 am for the Childrens' Tylenol.

My one prayer for this transformation is that we can keep it this way for .....oh let's shoot for 6 months. Time will tell.