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Last year, I found myself with a lot of extra time on my hands beginning in May. I had decided to stop going to school because I really wasn’t sure that I wanted to do anything with the business degree I was working towards. This was in the middle of planning my wedding but it was still about 10 months away. My pantry was in need of some serious organization. The chaos and clutter were beginning to drive me crazy. So I started to focus on my house with my first goal to create an organized pantry.

Before

Getting Started

It was such a disaster. When I caught the whim to organize it, I had been grocery shopping several days before and didn’t even put all the groceries away. So the first thing I had to do was completely empty it & purge. I threw away anything that I knew we weren’t really going to use. And I took the opportunity to discard all items that were out of date. When I was done, this is what it looked like:

The pantry itself looked so much bigger once I got everything out. So while it was empty, I took the opportunity to give it a deep cleaning. I wiped down all the shelves with vinegar water then swept and mopped it. I thought my husband was going to kill e during this process because our kitchen and dining room looked like this:

 Organization Process

I’ve got a serious problem with starting projects and then not finishing them until much, much later. Sometimes even weeks go by before I come back to a project to complete it. I’m an awful procrastinator. I am working on getting better about it. With all of the stuff from the pantry spread across both my kitchen and dining room, I knew it would be in my way which is why I think I completed it in one afternoon. The bins I used are from the dollar tree. I love them because they are bright & pretty.

After I placed the bins and baskets throughout the pantry, I rearranged them several times until they were most functional. One of my favorite things that I found at the dollar tree is the tin cake pans. I purchased 4 pans then used marbles in between 2 pans to make a lazy susan. These are used to store my spices that I don’t use regularly in one and extra condiments in the other. I put these in the corner and they fit perfectly.

Finishing Touches

Next, I had already picked up some chalkboard labels and pen to label everything. The sticker labels and chalkboard pen are from Hobby Lobby. The labels were $3.99 per pack and the chalk pen was about $3.49. I found the labels with the clothespins attached at T.J. Maxx when I was browsing and I probably couldn’t do it again if I tried. The last thing I did was put everything else back into the bins and baskets. It ended up being nice and neat.

Before:

After:

Wow, what a difference between the two. Keeping it up has been pretty easy and I feel much better since I can actually find everything easily and it was relatively inexpensive. Now you can give it a try!