Kitchen Organization: Decluttering My Pantry
Don’t get me wrong, I love my new house…the pantry, however, not so much. My previous homes all had big walk-in pantries, this was more of a tiny closet with shelves. As you can see it was pretty tough to figure out what we had, what we needed, and what was going bad. I did love this little spice rack next to the oven, but it looked pretty unorganized, to say the least.
Lucky for me my friend Amy Suddelson is a “Lifestyle Organizer”, her motto: Transforming cluttered, disorganized pantries into functional and stylish spaces. And trust me, she did that and more, the kids and I love how we actually know what’s in the pantry now.
“For every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned.”
To start, Amy took measurements of what we had to work with. Then came the sorting, getting rid of what we really don’t use.
Next came a trip to The Container Store which I believe is pretty much her home away from home. Here we decided on the look we wanted to create which was a combination of wicker baskets and clear and white plastic containers.
She showed me how making everything uniform, and getting square or rectangle-shaped containers would make the most of our space. The same went for the spice rack. Amy also designed the cabinet for the active areas, those baskets would be for the things we always grab for on a daily basis. Then we organized the inactive or storage area, with bins labeled “extras” that house duplicates of items, or things that aren’t used that often such as specialty mayos and mustards. We even made a little dry-erase label so we always know what is hidden up high, and it reminds me to shop my pantry before going to the grocery store. I would definitely recommend this hack!
For the spices, just the simple act of buying glass bottles that were squared-off gave me tons more space and just looked so much nicer.
Amy has many ways to label the containers, but since I have fun handwriting I just labeled everything myself (maybe this should be my new part-time job?!? Momma’s always looking for ways to make an extra buck). Now I just need to figure out how to get Amy to perfect the rest of my life!!
