Pantry Chaos

Do you remember when I told you how I crazy I get when it comes to being organized?

Well...I'm going to show you something and you're going to say

"What!?!?!"

Honestly...I'm not sure if I even want to show you because it is REALLY embarrassing!

But...I am because I'm not perfect..so here we go...

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This, my friends, is my organized-unorganized pantry. Isn't it horrible!?!

The sad thing is, I know where everything is located.

I take after someone very special to me, and if she were to read this, she would know exactly who I was talking about...that's the funny part.

Oh how I love my Grandmother!!!

After looking at the IKEA website and finding all of the inexpensive storage solutions, I decided that there was NO reason that my pantry should look the way it does. Especially since I love to be organized.

So..my mission for this week is to get my pantry organized. I decided to go around the house, because I know for a fact that I already have a lot of things to use for storage. Things like old tins, old jars, empty boxes...I have a variety of stuff. But, I know that there are some things that I am going to have to get that I don't have.

Well...that is my mission.

Let's get it together...shall we!!

I will begin with the door. This is one of Mike's pet peeves. It is the most unorganized and cluttered part of the entire pantry. Every time I hear him open the door, it is always followed with..."KRISTEN!!!" It never fails. He hates it. *smile*

So, what better part to start with. When we moved in, the racks were already installed...how lovely right?

Right and wrong.

The racks are perfectly too close to store what is up there at the moment....honestly, I'm not sure what to put there due to the fact that the distance between the racks is permanent. Hmmm... so things just get thrown up there. Take this for instance:

Behind my pantry stock list we have....

 da da da da ....Spaghetti... in an open bag. Ready for Mike to spill so that he can continue the tradition of mumbling my name when he opens the door.
Here's how I fixed this horrible mess:

Let's start with the door:

I had an old strawberry tin that I thought would be perfect to store my season packets...you know...the taco seasoning, marinade packets, etc. I don't have a lot,so the size is perfect. I decided to hold off on splurging for new containers right now. There are a lot of other things that my family needs right now...so I'll just wait. For now, the pasta can stay in bags and neatly sit in the space where they won't attack my husband.  Since my pantry is only so big, I took most of the boxes and pulled their bags out. If it needed directions for cooking or mixing, I cut it out and taped it to the bag. I think that was my biggest space saver right their.

I took all of my freezer bags, other storage bags, foil and put them in one of my many drawers. Seriously, I don't know why I never thought of doing this before.

I reused diaper boxes for storing snacks for Mike's lunch. Definitely cheaper than buying baskets. Plus, they fit perfect up top.

I don't use a lot of canned products other than tomatoes. It's just a thing. Therefore, I don't need too much can space.

Below this last shelf, I have my BIG bowls and my stockpile.

The bottom of the pantry holds my dehydrator, lunchboxes, coozies, and the beef jerky gun. Mmm...beef jerky....can't wait to share that project. It's yummy!!!

I feel SO much better about this thing now.

I don't have a fancy pantry with labels, pretty baskets or tins for such, but I do know what's in there and what I have to fix supper for my family. That's all I care about. Vinyl labels would be lovely, but oh well. That's not priority these days.

And this works for me *smile*

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