I Can Make It

:: PROJECT #1 - PANTRY CLEAN OUT ::


Nothing like starting the New Year off with not only one but THREE clean closets. Yesterday I went through the laundry/scrapbook closet and organized my ever growing stash of paper and glitter and Cohen's crafting stuff. This morning we got up early (thanks Cohen) and started breaking down Christmas right away. I purged and got my Christmas decor down to only three big Tupperware bins so it will all fit in our entry way closet. I cleaned off all of my Primary stuff from the shelves in there and made more room for games/puzzles/flashlights.


As I was folding laundry in my bedroom (read: lying on the bed looking at the ceiling), I heard Mike (I love his Christmas Beard this year) rustling in the pantry. I went to the kitchen to see what he was doing and he had pulled out everything from our pantry and was on his hands and knees mopping the floor. I decided to help since this was one of the 50 projects on my list. The goal was to fit all of the junk - pictured in the first picture - into our little pantry.

The above picture is the 1/2 way point. Our pantry shelves have so much height to them, that a lot of space was being wasted. I didn't want to invest in a permanent solution, since this is an apartment that I pray we won't live in forever. I bought these shoe racks at IKEA for $10 a piece to utilize our shelf space. We can now stack our cans three high without all of the toppling over.


Another handy and cheap organizational tool is using an old CD holder to keep all of the flavor packets and mixes organized.

A utility hanger (KMart for $5.99) and a plastic bag holder (IKEA for $0.99) keeps everything off of the floor.

VOILA! Here it is all done. After getting rid of a lot of expired food and seeing what we really have in there, I've come to realize we need to get more food storage that we'll actually eat. But that will be a project for another day.