Friday, June 27, 2008

Before and After

I am a firm believer in "a place for everything and everything in it's place". Unfortunately with four children, this is easier said then done. For those who have seen my house, you know I'm not the "best" housekeeper in the world. By organizing I'm hoping thing will be easier to clean/straighten and by knowing exactly where things are I'm hoping to save myself a lot of time.

Ever since we moved in, I have really wanted to get our pantry painted, cleaned and organized. A couple of weeks ago Greg painted it and last week I got everything organized and labeled. I am in love with my new pantry. It is fabulous!!

The inspiration for my pantry redo came from some random blog (I can't find now). That blogger got her inspiration from another blogger (ain't the internet grand!). The original blogger used longaberger baskets to organize her chaos, the blogger I found decided that was too pricey an option and opted for cheaper baskets/bins from Pottery Barn (who are these people, both options are expensive!). Being the cheap person I am I opted for plastic baskets from Target (which by the way, will be MUCH easier to clean!! We are dealing with food). At first I picked up 15 white plastic baskets at 2.99 a piece (that was going to cost me $47.09 including tax, which was a little jaw dropping for plastic baskets). Luckily in the next aisle I found the exact basket in a lovely sea foam green on CLEARANCE! Not my first choice of color but at $2.19 a piece that brought my total to a mere $34.49, much easier to swallow.

So for my big reveal...

BEFORE


AFTER:

One of our cereal containers is in the dishwasher, that open space is not usually there.


Each basket labeled for ease of finding things.

Canned goods organized by type of food and shelf labeled for ease in finding and putting away. Especially helpful for little boys and husbands.

I love these little octagon containers from The Container Store. They hold breakfast/granola bars perfectly as well as popcorn and other yummy snacks. That far left container is full of all the odds and ends bags of snack items. The boys love having a snack from the "conglomeration" container!

This is key to an organized kitchen! Laugh and make fun all you will...call me Monica Gellar, but spices in alphabetical order will make your life 1000x times easier, especially after you train the other people in your kitchen to put them away the right way every time!

7 comments:

erika said...

ocd - I need YOU.

Anonymous said...

I love, love love it! It's just like raising kids, right? How much easier is your life if you just take the time to do something right in the beginning! Better to be proactive, than reactive! WOWZER Heather! I'm impressed! ;) Great Job!

Lodmell said...

Awesome pantry. I am jealous, my pantry is probably 1/4 that size or smaller. I don't think there is any sort of way to organize it. It makes me crazy every time I look and have to dig for something. I am with you I would love to have everything organized, but three kids and a husband who thinks things are better left out to find them, my house is hopeless. Although, I am trying to mold and shape all of them. David is coming around, the other day he even said he appreciate my OCDness sometimes.
Looks great!!!

Darby said...

How long would it take you to get here?

Karen said...

fabulous!

darla said...

So you have OCD like me, huh?? I love it!! People make fun of me for labeling everything and having my DVD's, canned goods, etc in alphabetical order!!!!! Glad to know there's someone else like me!!! I hadn't thought of putting spices in alpha order, tho!!! So i'm gonna get right on that!! Oh, and I never told you this... but a while back when you did the post about your kids toys and that IKEA shelf.. with the basket and laminated pix... and spent the next week doing the same here!!! I used to get my ideas from "Real Simple" magazine.. but I've decided you are my new inspiration!!!
DArla

Anonymous said...

Looks great!!! It does make a big difference and it makes life a lot easier when you try to get together your shopping list. Great Job!