Part 1 - Organizing My Pantry

I have some wonderful built in cabinets in my kitchen that function as storage for my pantry items.  However, in the rush to move into my house a year ago I just jammed things in each section where the items would fit without much thought to them.  I never took the time to organize each section so I found over time when I would go to the grocery store I would pretty much just open and close doors until I found some "space" to put my groceries.  It didn't take long for this to drive me nuts, but this project always seemed to take a back seat to my other projects as the only time it annoyed me was when I opened it up to put things inside of it or take things out of it. 

The other day I decided I just couldn't take it any more and I was determined to tackle one section at a time because that seemed more manageable with my busy schedule right now.  Whenever a project seems a little overwhelming I find it's so much easier to break them up into smaller projects.

My organizing systems works best for me when I have things labeled because there are a lot of instances when I'm in a hurry and not paying attention, or I just plain forget what goes where.  So out comes my label maker and I label my bins, shelves, and storage boxes as a quick reminder that THIS goes THERE quickly and easily.   It takes all of the thinking and the opening of containers first to see what's in them out of the equation.   It also ensures that I don't get lazy and put something in the wrong section just because I'm in a hurry.  Something about a shelf labeled condiments makes it impossible for me to be able to live one single second with a package of Oreo cookies on that shelf.  Call me weird, but that's what works for me!

So without further ado here is the storage section I am referring to in my kitchen.

The particular section I decided to start with is the bottom right section.  Since it is the section closest to the refrigerator I decided to store my supplements, medicine, snacks, and work snacks inside of it.  Here is a before picture.

It's not horrible but as you can see some things are in here that I don't want in here, like cheese in a can, crackers, and soda for my SodaStream.  Also my supplements were in another section next to my spaghetti noodles.  I told you it needs organized!  So my first step was to take everything out of this section and put it on the counter.  Then I pulled the supplements out of the other cabinet they were hiding in and just threw the things that don't belong here in another section for another day.  Remember, I made the decision I am only working on one section at a time!

Here is the after photo.

On the top shelf I put all my medicines, the second shelf has all my supplements (most are free to try samples I've accumulated over time), the third shelf is my snack shelf, and the bottom shelf is my work snack shelf.  The blue bin on the bottom shelf cost me $1 at Dollar General.  They are also stacking so if you have a cabinet that doesn't have as many shelves as mine you can buy several and stack them one on top of the other to help organize your things.

I didn't want just a boring white label stuck to the edge of the shelves so I busted out my washi tape I purchased at Target (the best way I can describe it is it's like a colorful masking tape) and taped the edge of each shelf before I applied a label.  It's happy and cheerful and every time I open this section it makes me smile and things that make me smile means I'm more likely to keep up on them.  This entire project took me about ten minutes and yet it makes such a huge difference for me that I can't wait to tackle some of the other sections!