I determined that my pantry had had it. Or…I had had enough of my pantry. Either way.
Shaun
and I live in a great rambler that was completely gutted a few years
ago, and the guy who re-did it DIY’d the whole thing himself. The only
thing Shaun and I have done
is add on a deck, and I really haven’t wanted to do another thing
besides art and family stuff. I like the wood floors, the carpet, the
tile, the paint colors. I really wouldn’t change a thing.
The
VERY BEST PART is the entire house has awesome storage space, which is
unheard-of for ramblers of the 1950’s and 1960’s era. At least in big
city, MN. It was bizarre
the thinking back then. Anyway, I have super storage, including my
largest of 3 pantries in the kitchen (I know, it’s out of control).
But
the thing is, when you have that much storage, you can take it for
granted. Shaun and I kinda-sorta put things in certain spots when we
unpacked groceries, but kinda not.
And pretty soon, the pantry was a mess, with cereal and chips here,
there and everywhere, and my candy stash right where the girls could get
at it – OY-VEY! (That’s German to the Norwegian UFF-DA!)
Here’s a picture of the mess as I began to take it all out of the pantry.
Stuff here, there and everywhere - and snacks right at kid-grabbing level. I had lost control. |
And then here are all the pull-out drawers (I know, ROCK ON) now.
Snacks,
chips, crackers, candy and granola bars on top – the hardest place to
reach for the girls. I put the candy in a snapware plastic container,
in the back, so the girls
really can’t see or get at that at all. For a while at least.
The view from up top - my candy is sealed tight in the top left corner. |
Next shelf down has bread, cereal, oatmeal, my cork jar (where Shaun and I collect our wine corks), sugar, flour, a spare bag of chips (since it was jumbo) and goldfish (I don't mind if the girls snatch those).
The
third shelf down has our dried goods like pasta, mac-n-cheese, couscous
and so on. It also has my Sodastream drink flavorings which I put in a
heart-shaped tin that Shaun
had given chocolates to me in a long time back and I found in my office
at work, collecting dust. That is also Shaun’s keurig coffee pod
shelf, but he was really low on the day I took these pictures, so there
weren’t many to see.
The back right snapware container has rice, ramen, Mrs. Grass soup and similar items. |
At
the bottom, there are paper plates, cups, napkins and the like (let's face it, I only keep the mini Dixie cups around for Jello shots, but who can dispose of such a useful item?!). We
don’t use them often, but want them accessible when we do. We mostly
use cloth napkins which I’m a big
proponent of. Also down there are potatoes, onions and a miscellaneous
item or two.
Room to spare! |
Now
since I did the organization, I could pretty easily keep this sorted
out. But Shaun wouldn’t do as well; not for lack of intention, but it
just would fall apart after
a while. I’ve discovered that on the whole, Shaun is a far better and
more frequent cleaner in our marriage, but when I clean, I tend to be a
better and more thorough organizer. As in, when he cleans up the girls
toys, he throws them in the toy box. Sure,
this cleans the space up; but when I clean the girls’ toys up, I sort
the toys into their respective stations, like Barbies, babydolls,
kitchenwares, books, drawing/crayons, and then only the random
miscellaneous leftover stuff goes into the toy box. But
I love him for cleaning up after us. I’ll just keep organizing up
after us.
I made this baby station (which extends to the left) for the girls, so there is a specific spot to put baby stuff. |
ANYWAY,
in order to keep this new pantry organization going for as long as
possible, what I did was use the new (to me) 3M post-it labels that are
sticky across the back of
the entire label. How awesome is that??? I labeled each shelf twice,
and hope it does the trick!
This is as close as I could find on the 3M website - same brand, mine just must not be online. |
Of course I did not dispense with my candy...just hid it better. |
I keep my bread & cake flour in there - Shaun could go blind rolling his eyes that we have: regular flour, whole wheat flour, cake flour and bread flour. |
Candy = for me; Chips = for Shaun; Fruit bars = for the kids. Life isn't fair. |
I’m impressed with myself anyway. And best of all, no little KD or Easy-Mac have been sneaking candy from the pantry either.
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