Organizing the Pantry

This week has been a week of full force organization. I have even inspired friends of mine to full force organize this week. I'm glad I have started the organization movement. I think after this week, I'm OK with whatever messes are lurking in the other closets around my house. I mean if I organized everything, what would I do for the next 37 weeks?

Here are the scary before pictures of my pantry and spice\can food cabinet...

The major problem in the pantry were all the small appliances, but now that I have moved them to the extra space in the linen closet, things are looking up. And some of the food did get trashed because it was hella expired, so that cleared up some room too.

My Pinspiration for organizing my pantry come from these two pins...

It seems the main idea for organizing a pantry is canisters and bins. Since we are trying to get all the processed food out of the house and we are buying more whole foods, I love the canister idea. It's much nicer than the bags of rice, beans, nuts, oats, granola, etc. The only down fall is all those canisters can get pretty expensive. So I started with a small collection from Walmart and Ikea, but even then, the total was still about $40.00. With time I will add more, and I will add those nice wicker bins, instead of the plastic ones I found for a dollar at Walmart. I don't want have to move to the poor house and organize all over again. :P

Here is the final product of all my organizing hard work this week...

They don't look as nice as the Pinterest Pins, but they are more organized and much easier to find things. Really both the pantry and the cabinet just needed a little TLC. So another Pinterest Success!

Organizing the Linen Closet

I want to start this post by saying: PLEASE DO NOT JUDGE ME! I keep a pretty will kept house and every one thing has it's place. The problem is some of the places are behind close doors, which in my mind means it's fair game to be a hot mess. Normally I don't post my absurd messes all over the Internet, but for the good of the blog I will. But I repeat: PLEASE DO NOT JUDGE ME!

Here is a picture of the linen closet I am going to work my Pinterest Challenge magic on...

PLEASE DO NOT JUDGE ME! Please do not judge that there is an avalanche of blankets about to take it's next victim. Please do not judge that when I folded the sheets or towels, I just literally threw them in the closet where ever there was room. Please do not judge that my linen closet also holds an assortment of food. Okay now that we have that all covered, wait till you see what it looks like in the end.

I would love to tell you my linen closet looks just like my Pinspiration, but seriously who's closet looks this good.

This is pretty fancy stuff. I mean all their towels, sheets, blankets and toilet paper match. I have a more "realistic" closet. So while this was my Pinspiration, my real inspiration was to make me not want to cry every time I opened the closet door.

I did pin a few other helpful tips for organizing my linen closet. The best Pinterest Pin was to take the bed sheets and extra pillow case and store them in the pillow case of the set. I mean this is freaking genius. Then the entire set is together when you want to use them. 

Although mine doesn't look as neatly presented as this Pinterest Pin. I don't know how they put in a bed sheet, a fitted sheet, and a pillow case and still look that flat. This is what a more "realist" view of the same situation looks like.

Not as nice, but still does the job. And like I said it's an amazing idea!

Since I am organizing the pantry this week as well, I have found room in the pantry for the extra food I was hoarding in the linen closet. I did decide to keep bathroom products, utility products, and other nonperishable products in the linen closet. I found some bins at the dollar store, to organize those items. I was inspired by this Pinterest Pin...

I even found similar baskets, but in white. I just didn't think I needed to label the baskets, since you can just look and see there is a hodgepodge of items in each basket.

So after all these pins and a little organization, here is the final look of my linen closet...

Really I think just folding the towels made it look a 100% better. I did get two large storage tubs from Target ($12.99 each) to contain all of those blankets. And since I am cleaning the pantry, some of the appliances that were in there made it's way into this closet, since I had so much extra room. Even after that there is still extra room. 

So there you have it, another Pinterest Success. Next up with be the pantry and spice\can food cabinet.

Week 15 Theme...

With the Holidays coming, I thought I would try another week of organization. Get some rough areas in the house organized before Thanksgiving and Christmas come. I started my Pinterest Challenge with organizing one drawer in my bathroom. I have managed to keep that draw in order for over three months now.

This time around instead of one drawer, I am going to organize a linen closet, a pantry, and a cabinet for spices and canned goods. Talk about the mother load of messes! I have my work cut out for me this week; especially once you see what I am up against.

I am extremely embarrassed to share pictures of these closets and cabinets. There is a reason they have doors on them: to keep the mess contained. I will share without even straighting up a little, so check in this week for the before and after pictures of my Week 15 organization Pinterest Project.

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