Pantry Organization

If you don't know by now, I'm a bit OCD when it comes to my house being clean.  The good thing is that I'm married to a clean freak as well.  Most people that come to our house think that its immaculate, but Hubby and I constantly feel anxious because we feel like our house is in disarray.  A few months ago, my pantry was giving me high anxiety.  I cringed every time I opened it.  I felt like I couldn't find anything, and never knew what I already had.  So after being fed up with it, and getting inspiration from my sisterger's blog on her pantry renovation. I decided to do something about my own.

So one Friday after work, I hit up Ross to start my own pantry renovation project.  Here are the items that I picked up.

The baskets were from Ross and between $10 and $15.  The tall container was from Ross and around $10-$15.  The cereal containers were from Ross and less than $10.  I got the box of sealed jars from Ross for $10.

This is definitely not my proudest moment.  You guys get to see my dirty...pantry!  I guess you can see why this was causing me so much anxiety.  I started to take everything out and go through what we needed and didn't need.  I threw away foods that have been in the pantry forever.  I mean if we haven't used it in the past three months or more, we definitely don't need to be eating it now!  Clean eating tip!

After clearing everything out, I felt overwhelmed thinking...geez now what do I do with all of this stuff!  I just took it item by item, shelf by shelf.  Hours later I was able to come up with what is below.

My husband was shocked when I sent him the "after" picture.  I even looked in my pantry thinking, "where did my food go?"  I felt that I needed to go buy more items to fill it up, but I really did have all that we needed.

The organizer on the door is just an old shoe organizer.  We have had it for years.  It works great for the kids snacks and other odds and ends items.

These baskets work great to hold single items that are not boxed.  Overall, I was very pleased with the pantry and happy that I only needed a few inexpensive items to get the job done.  I ended up getting a few more of the cereal containers to put on the top shelf.  Organizing the pantry gave me peace of mind and lowered my blood pressure! Yes it sure did!  I was able to easily find things to cook and make grocery lists for what I needed.  I have even been able to maintain this quite well.  Why spend a lot of money on organizing your pantry when you can just work with what you got! Now if only I can get my refrigerator to look this nice! I think I will be better off just purchasing another fridge!