The Great Pantry Cleanup

Well, I worked from about 1030 to 430 and finally got the pantry organized yesterday. Of course, since I have a 5 and 3 year old, it was not the whole 6 hours straight. I had to stop for bloodcurdling screams, to give hugs and kisses on booboos, to check suspicious situations (things you don’t want to hear coming from your 5 year old’s room “Buddy, be careful on the tightrope”-tightrope? What tightrope?), feed snacks, meals, supervise potty breaks and of course go outside and ride our bikes. . .

The pantry (ie a coat closet that the previous owners had turned into a pantry because it was right next to the kitchen) had totally gotten out of control. It was full of lots of things that I didn’t use frequently, and many of the things I do use often were in a downstairs closet-like most of my canned goods. I also had a lot of “multiples” of things like my spices that were taking up a bunch of space. So my organization did include consolidating things into jars and then moving the “refill” jars downstairs. Oh, and making a list of what “refills” were down there so I wouldn’t think I was out and buy more. This total pantry chaos is not how I had originally set it up, but after a year and a half of living, that is how it had wound up.

I had stuff spread out all over the hall. You can see a laundry basket that filled up with things that needed to go to the downstairs closet, a paper bag full of things to give away, and stuff yet to be sorted next to the wall.

Closeup of the laundry basket, and some of the things to be stored downstairs. I love the wok my sister gave me as a wedding shower gift (thanks Amy) but I don’t use it frequently enough to be given prime real estate in the upstairs pantry.

This is just to give you an idea of the chaos that was in there to start with-and this is with a lot of the stuff taken out of the lower level. Before organization, to get to my appliances I usually had to pull 2 or 3 things out. Of course, when i went to put it back I didn’t feel like doing that and would toss it on top, usually precariously balanced atop another appliance. Hence the eventual chaos.

The appliances that were on the bottom of the closet originally. Yes, that is 2 crockpots, a steamer, food processor, a rice cooker and a bread machine. Plus the salad spinner, food processor blades (in the sweet n low box) the bread machine pan (which had wound up outside the bread machine) and the bread cutting guide thingy (thanks Ted!)

This really just shows re purposing. These pocket things I have hanging on the sides of the closet were actually part of a baseball hat hanger for the back of a closet door. DH has a LOT of baseball hats. You were supposed to tuck the bill of the hat down into the pocket. It was originally 3 rows of the pockets across. It never really worked that well, so when we moved I careful cut the 3 rows apart (luckily there was a space between the columns to do that) and 2 parts in the pantry to store all those “packets” you buy with gravy mix etc. The 3rd part wound up in the downstairs coat closet.

This is what happens in the den when the kids are left alone so you can organize. Apparently the coffee table was a bridge over alligator infested waters. . . the cushions etc (which I gave them for Christmas last year to use in building things like this) were parts of the jungle or something. . . . I am actually standing right next to where I had the Wok on the floor to take this, so they were right near me while I was organizing.

Here we are all organized. As you can see, I can actually SEE all of the appliances. I used my handy dandy label maker to mark what went there, to keep myself from forgetting, and so that I can ask DH or others to put things away for me. Added bonus-I can actually have the mop/bucket and broom & dustpan in the closet instead of leaned up in the kitchen corner where I was always tripping over them!

The food shelves actually will get a few more things from the bulk storage area downstairs. I was able to use baskets that I had bought to help organize Princess’s changing table way back when to contain the stuff on the higher shelf. The one on the left has another container inside corralling my popcorn and popcorn flavor shaker things (which I had forgotten I even had) and has my power bars in the back (I’m back on my diet and those are good to keep in the car etc) The center one has drink mixes in the basket on top, and the plastic shoebox underneath has my flavored teas. Actually I have tea already in the kitchen-this is to store the tea that will refill the tea in the kitchen. . . Next, lying on it’s side is my sprouting jar. Then lastly on the right are a plastic shoebox and basket filled with snack foods-mostly pretzels.

On top are the food processor blades (I left the regular one in the processor, these are all the additional ones) my plastic kids lunch trays (which had been living on top of the fridge) with the salad spinner stacked on top. And then I was able to put all of my plastic drink pitchers and plastic ice cream buckets up there as well. (they had been living on top of the fridge as well).

Here you can see that the door spice rack (which is really a VCR tape holder we bought to use as a spice rack) has been reorganized. The white paper on the door has a list of all the spices that I have downstairs now to replace/refill the ones there when I run out. It is right at eye level and hopefully will keep me from buying doubles of things I already have (I had about 3 jars of ground mustard powder. I rarely use the stuff-what was I thinking!!!)

So there you have it! Now that my pantry is organized, I can actually find things, which will encourage me to use up what I have and to not buy doubles when I have items already. Also, since it is so much easier to get to my appliances I am even more likely to use them, which means even more cooking from scratch (although I do pretty well on that anyway). Plus-it makes me feel just a tiny bit more in control of my life-and hey, it was cheaper than therapy!