It's a Pantry Party!

Aaaand we're back! Sorry for the delay and technical difficulties. Hopefully we've got those all worked out and can be back in business.

One of my friends, who happens to have a pretty fun blog, recently issued a challenge to some of her blogger friends - clean the pantry and share before and after pics for all the blogosphere to see. Well, seeing as this is a blog about food, I thought that sounded like a ton of fun. So I immediately said yes.

Now, one thing you must understand is that I don't have a real pantry. I have a jelly cupboard in the kitchen where the majority of the baking supplies are kept (you know, the flours, the sugars, the yeast and baking powder and vanilla - all the frequently used staples). It also houses cereals and snacks and other high-frequency food stuffs. And then, down the half-set of stairs, on the landing, on the way from the main floor to the basement, we have another "pantry" area, a double slider door set of shelves where we keep the non-perishable food stuffs - the pasta, cans of beans, unopened bags of chips and more cereals... Every once in a while, I'll go through parts of one of these areas, but, with the frequency with which we cook and bake around here, it's not surprising that things very quickly turn into a jumbled mess.

So, without further ado, here's what I was able to do!

I started with the double slider pantry.

Here's what it looked like before...

The lighting there is not great, and, seeing as it's the landing in the middle the stairs, there's not a ton of space... but that's what it looked like. Jumbled mess on the left, jumbled mess on the right.

I took everything out, got rid of things that were purchased prior to the birth of my child... yeah, the one in kindergarten... *blush*

Then I tried to give it a little rhyme and reason.

And here's how it ended up:

So much better!! Not perfect, and I think I still have room for improvement, but at least it is easier to see everything, not as jumbled, and it actually makes a bit of sense what is on which side. And there are no more expired items in there...

Next came the jelly cupboard. I am in and out of this little cabinet countless times a day, and little man loves opening it and pulling things out of it... so it winds up looking like this...

Yes, with that little man right there.

Once again, everything got taken out. Shelves were wiped clean of all the flour, sugar and, well, quinoa... yeah. Then I tried to put everything back, again, trying to instill a little big of logic into the setup. Any un-opened items were moved to the downstairs pantry area, and everything else was put in as logically as I could manage... And the result:

All breakfast items on the bottom shelf, then the baking ingredients divided between the top two shelves.

There is definite room for improvement, but, honestly, that would require a significant overhaul of pretty much pretty much every kitchen cabinet... which will take much more time. But I am very pleased with what I accomplished, and am very glad that I undertook this challenge.

To see the inspiration for this challenge, check out what happened in the H family pantry. :) And if this inspired you in any way shape or form, let me know and I'd love to link over to your before and after!