Party in My Pantry

Our pantry certainly fits in the category of places in our house that make me cringe each and every time I look inside. That is...until this weekend. You see, our pantry was an utter disgrace of clutter and chaos. For someone who cooks frequently, it was a nightly challenge trying to locate the ingredients I needed. So, this weekend, I decided it was time to get a handle on this situation.


Suprisingly, it wasn't nearly as painful or time consuming as I had projected it to be. In fact, the whole decluttering and organizing process only took about an hour, and would have probably been less if a certain 7-month old had actually taken his nap instead of crawling in and out of the pantry the entire time. All I had to do was clear each shelf one by one. Once done, I started putting our products in groups. All told, I ended up with 9 different categories: entertaining supplies, cooking wines, oils and vinegars, miscellaneous sauces, breakfast products, rice and pastas, sweet snacks, salty snacks, and baking supplies. Once in their groups, I simply put the groups back on the pantry shelves.


Now for the most OCD, but also what I think may end up being the most beneficial part of the project...I labeled my shelves!!! All it took was some scrapbook paper, a nice black pen,a Benjamin Moore paint swatch to measure the size, and some clear scapbook tape to afix the labels to the shelves. In the past, my organization has lasted a few weeks until inevitably, we start just throwing things in haste again. My hope is that with the labels in place, the organization will be maintained. I guess only time will tell...


In the meantime, allow me to rejoice. I don't have any before shots to share with you (just picture food chaos), but here are the glorious afters:

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My pictures don't do it justice...it really is immaculate! And I must say, quite the productive way to use our extra hour this weekend. So, what about you guys...did you use your hour for productive tasks too, or just for a little extra sleep? I think I would have enjoyed the sleep part too, but again, a certain 7-month old didn't really understand the whole Daylight Savings Time