Putting Together the Pantry

Well, you've probably noticed that I haven't been in project mode lately, so I know the blog's been a little boring. I hope to post soon on some things we have been working on these past couple of weeks. We have really been in an organizational mood lately, and it's wonderful! Not many crafty things are being created, but we are definitely knocking a dent in our house cleaning & streamlining, which is priceless.

 I have to brag on my sweetie. He has been the one in an organizing mood lately (praise the Lord!), and has been taking advantage of it around the house. I got home from my best friend's baby shower two Sundays ago, and the house had been vacuuumed. I absolutely HATE the task of vacuuming, and he knows this, so he vacuumed the whole house for me
while I was gone.

Then, that night, he decided he wanted to organize the pantry. Our pantry has become somewhat of a blackhole for snacks, boxed foods, and plasticware. It was an unorganized mess. I will swallow my pride and show this "Before" photo here...ugh...

So shameful, isn't it?? My grandmother would not be proud if she saw this, that's for sure. She's the queen of clean in my family. :)

You can see our snacks & cereals & such on the top shelf, then the great tupperware abyss on the bottom shelf.

So, we started out by taking all of that junk out, and setting it out on our kitchen cabinets. It's one of those projects where it gets really messy before it gets clean. You have no other choice but to make a mess first in order to have it clean & organized in the end.

A sea of (unused) plasticware...

I bought two of these baskets at Dollar General for $4 each (but with a 50 % off coupon, ha!), and Zach used them for snacks & my K-cups. I had to head back to the store the next day to buy more. Love them!!

Here's my sweetie at work...

I loved this idea for my K-cups & hot chocolate mixes! There is no sense in keeping those bulky boxes!

Here is one of the other baskets we used, now known as the ramen noodle nest. I love my ramen!

And here are the Afters!

Top shelves...

This shows all 4 of the baskets that we used. The front two have our breads/buns and our cookies & such...

We have our neat little plasticware carousel in use & easily accessible now (on the right)...

The bottom shelves have tons of extra room now!

Ah, it's so much better!