As everyone else, I have weaknesses. One of them would be holiday decorations. I am always going into the holiday clearance and picking up a few things here or there, and now I have quite a bit. Not as much as I would like to have, but I'm running out of places to put things.
Then another thing that we have a lot of is baby stuff. which I will be getting rid of some of it here very soon! That makes me all kinds of excited. Some things I'm still planning on keeping for visitors that have little kids. It's always nice to be prepared for any situation.
Even though we are probably going to be moving sometime in the next 18-ish months, I want to get as much organized at our current house as possible. This will cut down on moving things that we don't want or need anymore, and things will be in a good place when we un-box things at the new house. I was planning on doing something like this last year, but the motivation just wasn't there. So...in walks the 52 Weeks To An Organized Home. I like the set up of this and it's also making me look at things that I might not think to look at up front. Like organizing my recipes and what not. I've been wanting to do it, so this is perfect.
She has been doing this challenge for what looks like a decade now, so she has some great resources, such as printables and a Facebook page that you can follow along with to stay motivated.
For the month of January, we've started out focusing on our kitchen. Technically, I'm on week 4 already starting today, but I'm going to show you last weeks challenge since I haven't done this weeks yet. Since I'm at work all week, I keep the activities for the weekend typically.
Week 3 - How to Organize Pantry, Spices and Food
I'd like to think this is what a normal pantry looks like after it's been used for awhile. People just end up throwing things into the closet/cupboard because it takes time and patience to keep things organized. I know personally, I have to organize my pantry about 2-3 times a year. The kids get in there, Brett gets in there, and even my mom has a way of getting in there when she comes to visit.
This is what my pantry looked like to begin with...
I don't feel like it's a huge mess but it definitely was getting disorganized and I really had no idea what was in there. Brett would ask me if we had something, and I would reply with, "I think so?" My pantry is also a really weird configuration since the refrigerator is in a corner. so it makes this cupboard into a wedge. Things will get lost in the back very easily.
So, I started with the spices in the door. I for sure knew I needed to go through these and make sure that they weren't all expired. There were a few that I threw away, but overall I'm doing pretty good! So I ended up putting the spices that I use most often on the bottom shelf and FINALLY getting all the sprinkles that we have together in one place. I think it turned out pretty good overall, and now I also know what I have in this part of my pantry.
Then I started at the top and worked my way down. I have a bunch of vases and pitches up top which pretty much stayed up there. I did get rid of a couple of things (or should I say put them in my Goodwill box). That shelve was pretty easy. The next shelf down is also a spice/seasoning shelf. That one stays pretty organized overall, since we use those spices and things a lot. I moved a few things around to make it a bit more put together, but we were definitely off to a good start.
I don't know if you can tell or not, but as I went shelf by shelf I just moved everything down to the next shelf or to the floor. It seemed to be a good way to do it for me.
The rest of the project was pretty simple really. Just the same thing. Check expiration date, which I did have a few things that were pretty old so I threw them away and put them on my grocery list to get new fresh ingredients.
Here is the finished product! Overall, I think I could probably utilize the space better if I had say an extra couple of shelves in there to make more stack-able room, but since I know that we're leaving in the "near term" I'm not planning on getting a lot of storage supplies that might only work for this house. If I think I can get my moneys worth out of it at our new house too I will definitely invest. I just am not exactly sure what I'm going to want in my pantry there. Although the new pantry is awesome because it has pull out shelves! I can't wait! Plus I'm going to have a closet just around the corner from my kitchen that I can also put some larger appliances in if I don't have enough space in my kitchen, or just want the convenience. Believe me, I can't WAIT to organize that kitchen.
Now I'm going to leave you with some dream pantries. Who doesn't dream of something like this in their kitchen? So beautiful and organized. It also makes me wonder how long it actually stays that way...
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