Kitchen Reorg: The Pantry

I am participating in a kitchen organization course at Simplify 101. At this point in time, I have revamped my entire kitchen, getting rid of items I don't want or need and reorganizing areas that weren't really working for me.

The instructor, Aby, started by reorganizing her pantry and then moving onto the kitchen... I decided that I needed to do both at once! Here it is mid-process:

Yikes!

The cupboards and pantry look marvelous at this point, of course...

 

I have to stress at this point that I have not yet bought any organizing containers. Everything in use was on hand... I'm in desperate need of certain items (I will probably point these out as I go) but in the meantime I'm using boxes, etc. I will do a final post once I am able to get what I'd like. A good time to re-evaluate my maintenance... ;) I find that I'm still tweaking my organization here and there so the after pics may not be the most current reflection of how things are.

The thing that bothered me the most was the pantry. I am blessed to have a marvelous pantry right between my kitchen and laundry room (which also offers me storage options).

 This area--the floor--was the part that was driving me the most nuts...

Before:

The recycling bins were in the middle of the floor. Reusable shopping bags were constantly being kicked around because they had no real place anywhere. The area under the shelves was being taken up by items I rarely used...

Here is how it looks now:

After:

I moved my roasting pan to the laundry room along with the large stockpot. The metal bowls were donated. The cake dome/punch bowl moved to the top of the pantry. The reusable shopping bags were store in one bag and relocated to the laundry room (a project I will post soon). I also relocated the bread machine only to bring it back--it's in the right corner that didn't photograph. I intend to use it more and seeing it frequently will help to remind me. The clear space there is for a large step stool that I have yet to purchase.

You can also see that I moved all my breakfast items--cold and hot cereal, as well as instant oatmeal--to the bottom shelf. More accessible to my little ones who I encourage to get their own breakfast unless I am making pancakes or waffles. They still need an adult to access yogurt for them, of course.

Here is another before shot of this shelving area:

My organized neighbor and friend is the one who started stacking cans in my pantry. Before that, I just kept them in their messy flats or spread them around!

You can see that their was no rhyme or reason to my food storage...

Here is what this area looks like now:

After:

Above the breakfast items (discussed above) are the kids' snacks. Above those, the canned goods. The lunch items and "adult" snacks are at the top there. The very top shelf, pictured below, has large serving platters.

After:

The right side of the pantry was even worse than the left!

Before:

Baking supplies that (I thought) weren't frequently accessed were stored high up in this corner. I seemed to be rummaging through them on a regular basis. Below that was my collection of large spice containers and infrequently used spics, as well as random storage items, like bulk oil. Below that, a messy conglomerate of pastas and my hot cereals. The bottom shelf, which doesn't change much, has my large flour bins (can't recommend these enough!).

Before:

The angular wall within my pantry has this lovely rack... which is overflowing with a jumble of items.

Here is the right side of my pantry now:

After:

The top shelf holds bulk items: Ziploc bags, oils, pasta sauce, un-decanted/unopened pasta, aluminum foil, as well as cake/cookie decorating supplies. The next shelf down holds miscellaneous items that don't really fit my categories: Mr. Noodles (the kids get this every Friday for lunch), my tortilla press and Masa Harina, etc. The next shelf down is my pasta and potatoes. My quick oats are here but I'm moving them to my baking cupboard (more on that in my next post!).

The wall rack is fro smaller storage items. I've decanted some of my smaller pastas into large canning jars (the instructor's idea). I really have more space than I currently use, but I'm sure a few months will take care of that...  ;)

I hope you enjoyed the tour of my new pantry! I'll be back to show you my new kitchen!

I've linked this to:

Dresser = Dining Buffet

I've had this post in Draft for some time, waiting for the moment I finished the last drawer of my dresser (more about that later in this post). It hasn't been done yet but I have a series of kitchen organization posts coming up and I thought I should lead into it with this.

I've always struggled with space assignment in my kitchen. One of the things that bothered me was access to placemats, table linens and kitchen cloths and towels.

Here is where I was keeping dishcloths and towels, bibs, aprons and oven mitts (nothing stayed folded or organized!):

And here is where I was keeping tablecloths and placemats in the laundry room (still being completed but much better than this now):

Blech.

After trying a few different things, I decided that I needed extra drawers accessible to my kitchen.

Enter: my closet dresser (and YES, my closet is on the To Do list! It already looks better than this but is not yet complete).

The missing drawer is due to an assembly "malfunction." I have the parts but lack the appropriate hardware to assemble it. A trip to IKEA's customer service is difficult with 2-3 little ones in tow and so it remains to be done...

I decided that it just takes up too much room in my closet and ended up as a landing place for all sorts of stuff.

Here is my dining room before:

And here it is with my "new" buffet:

After:

The painting is being sold. Once it is gone, I will probably install bracket-less shelves above as Jen did here (click on photo to go to original post)!

I was also waiting to post this because I wasn't sure what was going to end up in these drawers, aside from what I mentioned above. Here is currently how things are:

• dish towels and cloths
• aprons and bibs
• rags
• placemats
• tablecloths
• disposable eatware
• gift wrapping supplies

The gift wrap tubes don't fit the drawer as well as I had hoped and so I am planning to get something like this for behind my laundry room door (click on picture to go to original post).

I moved this dresser here all on my own but when my husband discovered its presence, he was alright with it. Phew!