An Organized Pantry-from Clutter to WOW

I Always Forget to Take the Before Pictures

Every time I take on a project, big or small, my daughter will ask me if I took a before picture and my answer every single time is no, no I didn’t. Her response is with a face palm, “Maaammaa!” Then we both laugh. I wish this time were different but I still did not take any before pictures for an organized pantry.

It never fails, I’ll think of some project, decide to do it, get all the supplies, and jump in to get started. While I’m getting supplies and writing out a to do list, I think, this will make a GREAT blog post. Then, when I get a window to get started, I just jump in and git ‘er done. Guess what that means? Yep, I forget to take a before picture, every single time. I don’t even take pictures of the progress along the way. So, I suppose there will be no tutorials here just all the after pictures, LOL. I mean, it’s awesome to share the after but some things really would make better content with a before picture or two. Then I think, without any before or process pictures what’s the use in posting?

I don’t Need No Stinking Before Pictures

However, today got me thinkin’, isn’t that what my life and this blog is all about? Not being perfect? Not always being prepared for the content, for life. Ha, why yes, it is! So, let’s forget the perfectly perfect posts, where people remember to take all the pictures and look perfect in the pictures and all that jazz. See, some days I don’t even get a shower, so it’s good that this website isn’t scratch and sniff. Heck, most days I don’t even know if I’m coming or going in this circus ‘round here. I tend to digress so let me get to the purpose of why I started this post in the first place. I have some after pictures and hopefully they make you forget about all those pesky before pictures I should have taken….and forgot.

This Makes Me So Happy

You know something that makes me happy? Organized spaces! I love a good, organized space of convenience and one place that is hard to keep organized and makes me say a few bad words weekly, especially after a trip to the grocery store, is the pantry. See, with 6 kids and a husband of which NONE are organized people and they don’t put things back where they got them. I have a system, it’s in my head, they don’t know the system, but I expect them to know the system. I put stuff on the shelf, and I expect it to be put back where it came from. Hahahaha. I’m living in a fantasy world, right? There is nothin’ worse than lookin’ for the peanut butter on shelf two at eye level and it be on shelf three at some small child’s eye level. This is not how I roll. Between my dissatisfaction of everyone breaking the golden rule of “put everything back where you found it” and the Pinterest pins of these fabulously organized pantries mocking me every 5 minutes I had finally been pushed over the proverbial edge to spend the time and money to organize the pantry once and for all.

It Doesn’t Have to Cost an Arm and a Leg

In the past I’ve always thought that getting organized would be too be costly, and it can be, but a few simple changes in the pantry doesn’t mean that you must spend thousands of dollars to get organized and honestly, the pins gave me inspiration to do it my way for my space. So, with the help of some great buys at Amazon, next day might I add, I was able to get the project done in a day putting in a couple hours of work.

The Transformation

Disclaimer: Please note, this post may contain affiliate links. This means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if clicked. Though the opinions remain my own.

If I had a before picture, I would put it here and just for giggles I did search through my Google photos drive just to see, if by chance, I had ever taken a picture of the pantry. To my surprise, there were none. Haha, not even my kids took a picture of the pantry at any point in the last two years, and they take pictures of the floor…a LOT. I’ll admit it wasn’t terribly messy, but it wasn’t highly organized either, and bottles were stacked in front of each other, spices were hard to get to so it could be frustrating that nothing had a permanent place and each week as I bought groceries things might get a new place.

Here’s what I did to transform the space. I already had the cereal containers on the top shelf as well as the wire baskets you see on shelf two but something different was always in them based on what I bought that week and there were no labels on them. To get organized I bought some awesome clear containers from Amazon, they came 4 to a set and I bought 2 sets of them. The containers also came with chalk style labels and a chalk pen. I filled those with baking essentials like flour, sugar, etc. and some staples like rice and popcorn kernels. I bought over the door organizers, one for each pantry door, and this has been my favorite. A great place for spices, condiments, odd baking items, syrups, etc. I labeled the clear containers and the wire baskets. To label the baskets I used some of the chalk labels that came with the clear containers and placed those labels on an unlined note card, then punched holes at the top and attached them with cable ties. If a basket item does change then I can simply erase what’s there and write a new name on the label. I also bought a can organizer. I don’t buy a ton of canned stuff but when I do stock up stacking them just gets all knocked over and it would drive me nuts. Now they stay nice and neat in this nifty little organizer. The other item I bought and didn’t work out for its original intent was an organizer that can be used for kitchen wraps or Ziplock style bags. Well, the only kitchen wrap I use is parchment paper and we buy everything in bigger bulk boxes so nothing I had fit, but boy does it make the perfect place to store my recipe books. Happy, happy, joy, joy! Another cool thing I did was create some recipe cards, laminated them and used these clear pockets we use for home school and attached it to the side of the biscuit flour container to store the recipe cards since I use those so much each week.

Is it sad that having an organized pantry makes me so very happy? (don’t answer that) I mean, let me tell you, I baked a cake for my youngest son’s birthday after this pantry was way organized and, oh.my.gosh, it was so convenient and saved me time and frustration. I was giddy, for real.

And there ya have it! Now you know I’m kind of an organizational freak and organized things make me happy. I’ve waited a long time to implement some better organization around here. Mainly because I didn’t think I had the resources. Once I stopped over thinking it, it hit me and BAM a new pantry was born. I bought 6 items and spent $220 and it’s like a brand-new space, even the kids have remarked how good it looks and, so far, everything has been put back where it belongs. Hallelujah! You might think that is a ton of money but y’all my sanity, my sanity has been worth every penny to me.

Conversation with friends:

Friends: What did you do last night Kristal?

Me: opened my pantry door every 5 minutes to see how organized it is.

Friends: uh………..(silence)

Me: What? This isn’t normal?

Have you seen all those Pinterest pins of the best organized something and thought to yourself that you wish you could but don’t feel like you can because you think it’s a project bigger than you can handle, or that it will cost too much money? You might be over thinking your project too. Sometimes it takes stages/days, even months to get to the final stage of the organization, baby steps are good and you’re less likely to get overwhelmed. It’s all about one task at a time and how many you can handle at a time. And you know what? If having an organized pantry, or anything, is not your jam don’t do it just because Pinterest mocks you or because you read my post. I’m just here to be funny and share life and write, you do you boo, no pressure!

Let’s Talk

Check in below with a comment to let me know you stopped by. I’d love to hear from you!