I cannot believe that my favorite time of the year is almost over and that soon it will be 2020!! This year I decided that over my Christmas break, I would declutter and organize my way to the new year.
An organized pantry is something that I have dreamed about having for a long time, so that is where I decided to start. After a few amazon orders and trips to Bed Bath and Beyond, HomeGoods, TJ Maxx and Target to buy all the containers and bins I was ready to begin my mission.
STEP 1: EMPTY AND CLEAN OUT YOUR PANTRY
Like with almost anything, starting with a clean slate is the best way to begin. Go through everything and either donate items you do not use or toss them (this goes for both food AND kitchen appliances/supplies). By doing this step I was able to take 4 large boxes to our local St. Vincent de Paul of donations as well as fill up 4 garbage bags.
You are probably thinking "holy crap Emily, what did you all have in there?" Well....I'm not proud of this before photo because it's bad, but here it is.
We literally stored almost EVERYTHING in our pantry. From food to pet supplies to plastic silverware and party supplies and even kitchen small and large appliances. It was bad. I know. After I clean out everything, I wiped down the shelves and vacuumed all the little nooks and crannies...we have a black lab, therefore hair gets everywhere so these steps were very necessary.
Warning- when you empty everything out, make sure you have a large area put it. I used my counters and kitchen table.
STEP 2: TRASH OR DONATE TIME
Before I even started to empty out the pantry, I made sure I had a few boxes near me that I would use for any items I wanted to donate, as well as a few trash bags for anything that just was going to be discarded. You can either start going through everything while you are emptying, after once it is all out or both. I chose the both method. As I was taking everything out I sorted all the food to one area and then everything else to another. I donated/trashed kitchen appliances and supplies as I went but waited to go through the food until a later step. Like I stated earlier in the post, I was able to donate 4 boxes of kitchen appliance and supplies to our local St. Vincent de Paul, which makes me feel very happy.
STEP 3: PLANNING OUT YOUR SHELVES
This step you can do on paper or just as you go. Personally, I'm a planner and like laying things out on paper so that I feel like I have some sort of game plan. I quickly drew out my shelving and wrote where I thought I wanted things to go. I then started placing some of my empty containers on the shelves to see how things fit. After reading all the blogs and tutorials of how to make your pantry organization actually work, the number one thing they all had in common was to use clear storage containers and to put everything in baskets so that items can be seen but are contained. Also if you have any larger kitchen appliances that you store in the pantry, such as an instant pot, airfryer, dutch oven, etc., plan for their spot right away also.
STEP 4: START FILLING YOUR CONTAINERS
The containers that I used were purchased from a variety of retailers, both online and in store. Ditching the packaging of items allows things to have a clean, uniform look.
For dry food storage I used two sets of the 9 Piece Airtight Food Storage Container Set by DRAGONN from Amazon. Each set runs about $50 and comes with label (however I did not use the labels that came with the set). Normally, I probably wouldn't of used two but one of my sets was a gift and I had an Amazon gift card...so I figured why not :)
For dry ingredients such as flour, sugar, brown sugar, and powder sugar I bought the Progressive™ Prokeeper 6-Piece Set from Bed, Bath and Beyond. I have been searching for containers for ingredients like these and after reading all the reviews and going back and forth, I finally decided to pull the plug. The set comes with a container for flour, sugar, brown sugar, powder sugar and two little extra ones. I used them for baking soda and corn starch. It runs about $59.99 but I decided to wait for a 20% off and used some of my Christmas money to purchase them. So far, I'm very happy with my purchase.
To store my spice bottles, I used two Non-Skid 3-Tier Spice Pantry Kitchen Cabinet Organizer that I found at HomeGoods. I was unable to find the exact ones so here are ones very similar. What I like about these is that they are tiered, which allows me to see each bottle and not be searching for five minutes, just to find a bottle of onion powder.
To store most of my spices individually, I used the most adorable little mason jars that I found at Target and labeled them using a paint pen. This isn't necessary to do, however I feel like it gave my pantry the finishing touch of looking instagram worthy :) I did not use the little mason jars for every spice bottle that I use, mainly just the "stand alone", simple spices such as onion powder, oregano, ground mustard, etc. I put all of the mason jar containers on one of my tiered shelfs and then the rest on the other.
For the rest of the items in my pantry - the canned goods, rice packets, bottles of condiments, dressings, snacks and baking supplies - I found some semi-clear (frosted) bins at Target as well as used some bins that I already had from Ikea and The Container Store. The Target containers come in a variety of sizes and also with covers! I did not end up using the covers however I plan to get a few of the largest size to be able to store reusable shopping bags and extra spices.
One thing that I learned while doing all of this was if it didn't fit into a bin or a container, we didn't need it. This helped a lot while I was organizing everything.
STEP 5: LABEL, LABEL, LABEL!!!
To help keep up all the hard work that was just spent organizing, I decided to label all of my bins and containers. This will help keep everything organized as well as being dummy proof for hubbies...and kids. You can purchase pantry labels on Etsy and Amazon or if you are crafty like me, make them using your Cricut!
Organizing is one of my most favorite things to do and I am so happy with how my pantry turned out. I cannot wait to keep decluttering my way to 2020! Only a few days to go!
Oh, here are the after photos since I showed you the before! :)
Here are some close ups!
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