Project Simplify, Week 2: Pantry

When I saw the list of hot spots for this year I have to admit, I was most excited about the pantry.  This is one area in our house that can easily turn into something that looks like it has been hit by a tornado, or two.  It ends up in this post tornado state when groceries are put away wherever they fit or when our little ball of energy decides to make a mess help reorganize.

So when preparing for this week I went to pinterest and typed in pantry to get ideas of how I wanted my pantry to look and easy/cheap ways to organize. What I found was not only some great ideas, but pantries that made my mouth drool!  Who knew that a walk in pantry could be so amazing! I'll save that for our dream house though because after living in a townhouse for two years, with no pantry and barely any cabinet space, I am just thankful to have a pantry :)

I found though that most of these "perfect" pantries just didn't seem practical, they had rows of matching condiments, cereals, pasta, etc.  As that looked very nice and magazine worthy it just didn't look like a pantry in a "I cook everyday and use tons of different items" household.  So here I am, with my pantry that has about 150 different items and all sorts of boxes...What to do?

Here is our pantry before:

And here is our pantry after:

Tried to group items that are alike. I know this won't last though because some weeks we have 1-2 canned items and other weeks we have 5-6 so they just go where they fit and are still an easy find.

The project I was most EXCITED about, bought 3 packs of letter stickers (99 cents a piece) and labeled the baking supplies!

Got a little carried away and labeled the cereal containers as well :)

Added three baskets for the smaller items that were always getting shuffled around

Basically I just went through everything in the pantry, reorganized and added some labels. Nothing fancy, but much needed! Here's to hoping that everything can stay in its place, at least until our next grocery trip :)