Pantry Reorganization

My baby boy started preschool this year, so I have four afternoons a week to myself. It's pretty glorious. Although I envisioned having all sorts of house projects completed at this point and a lot of lounging in our pool by myself. Sadly neither has really happened. I mostly use the time for cleaning house and running errands alone. Do you know how fantastic it is to run errands alone? Do you know how fast I can be in and out of my car and a store without having to deal with car seats? It's kind of like this. I really wanted to post the picture, but it was too big across, and I don't know how to fix that. Sorry. But if you have kids and run errands with them, you will probably find it amusing.

Anyway, one of the projects I wanted to get done was to reorganize my pantry. It was in a complete state of chaos. It had gotten so bad that I had resorted to putting things in there all willy-nilly instead of their normal spots. It made it very difficult to find things I needed. So I decided one day last week that it was time to bite the bullet and do it. So I pulled everything out before I took Boy #2 to school with the intention of organizing and putting everything back while he was at school. Let me tell you what happens when you leave in the middle of a project like that. You come home and think your kitchen has been overtaken by an episode of Hoarders. It was nuts. I suggest you do it sometime just so you can see how much crap you have in your pantry (or whatever room/closet/storage area you need to clean out). It's a great motivator.

After almost 2.5 hours I was left with a lovely, clean, organized pantry. And somehow I have significantly more space than I did before. I did throw out a few things, and I moved our alcohol to a little buffet cabinet in our living room that was previously home to my fine china and crystal (that gets used maybe once a year, and the husband deemed it was taking up valuable storage real estate and the cabinet could be put to better use as a liquor cabinet while all my pretty things could be stored in a box in a closet. He had a valid point once I thought about it.), so that freed up quite a bit of space. I couldn't decide if I wanted to take a "during" picture of my Hoarders-esque kitchen, but I opted not to. I did take a picture of all my spices stacked up on a chair because it was a bit overwhelming.



So, here are my before and after pictures. I have to say I am loving my new, clean pantry!!