Do you ever find yourself walking into your pantry, looking around, cringing and then walking out in frustration? Frustration of not being able to find anything. Frustration of clutter, unorganization, and pure chaos? I know I have found myself in this situation many times, not just with my pantry either. Let’s face it, we all have good intentions of keeping everything neat and tidy and in it’s own special place. But even with the best of intentions we don’t always succeed because, well, life happens. With the new year, I decided to start things off by getting everything back in place.
There are many new recipes and techniques I want to attempt this year and I thought it would be much easier to accomplish with a clean and organized pantry where I can easily access the items I need. I have had every intention of cleaning out and reorganizing my pantry but I honestly just haven’t gotten around to it, until now. I am so happy with how it turned out. It’s amazing how much difference some time, cleaning and organization make. Now there won’t be anymore boxes, packeges or bags of stuff being pushed to the back of the shelves and forgotten forever.
This was my pantry before. I promise it didn’t start out like this. It started out nice, neat and very organized but as time goes on and multiple people enter your pantry things tend to get put back in the incorrect place and stuck here and there. Before you know it your stuck with an unorganized closet of chaos.
Let’s fast forward a few hours, add new shelf liner, wipe down the walls with bleach (it’s nice to start completely fresh), Elfa cabinet sized drawers, various sizes of shelving inserts, a couple of hooks for my aprons, and you’ve got my new and very organized pantry!
Take a little time to strategize. Look at the space you have to work with and envision how you would like it to look. Use the internet to browse organizational websites, I LOVE the Container Store, they not only have endless options for storage but ideas and inspiration as well. They would be a great starting point to help bring your vision to life. Think about what the space is used for now, what is your biggest complaint about the functionality of it, then find the type of shelf, drawer or organizer that will best fit your needs.
Now that you’ve got a plan, ather and buy your supplies. There’s nothing worse than getting started on a project only to find that you don’t have something you need.
Now that you have all of your supplies, now it’s time to get started. Don’t get overwhelmed, just take it one shelf or cabinet at a time. Remove everything, wipe your shelves and walls down, and replace the shelf liner if desired. Once everything is removed from your project area, place your shelving inserts and drawers to get a visual and once you have everything how you want, secure it with the supplies that are provided.
Now that your project area is organized and how you want it, now it’s time to organize your products and put them back in their new home. Be sure to get rid of everything that is out of date or that you won’t use…now is the time to get ride of stuff, don’t put it back if you know you won’t use it!
