Another staycation project: the pantry!

Pretty much everything in the house has been neglected for the last 2 years while I was finishing my degree.  You saw how bad the gift wrapping closet got - wait until you see the pantry!  I mentioned my pathetically-overstocked-but-incredibly-underused pantry the other day while making honey Nutella Rice Krispie treats, so now it's time to show you.  Are you ready?  Ok, here goes:

...wow.  There's flour on one shelf, sugar on another, peanut butter at both ends of the 2nd shelf, sideways cereal boxes, and way too many small appliances in there.  Why, oh why?  Don't even get me started on the spice door.  I can't even tackle that because it requires more brain cells than I'm willing to devote today.


To alleviate the worry of flour or sugar falling on my face every time I open the small cabinet above the stove, I wanted to move those big tubs to the pantry, but where?  Every square inch is used, ineffectively.  So the first thing I did was take out the bread maker and ice cream maker and put them in the garage.  I don't want to get rid of them because I use them, but I don't use them enough to need them in the kitchen all the time.  Then I moved the trash bags to the floor - that, along with taking grilling boards and cleaner out to the deck box cleared about half of a shelf.  Score!  Then I started trashing and sorting.


Expired things went in the trash.  Soon-to-expire-but-haven't-been-eaten-since-Christmas-2006 went in the trash.  Things I bought on a whim (probably hungry while grocery shopping) went in the trash.  Then I consolidated all the pasta boxes into my new pretty glass jars from Ikea!  

I just love the way that looks.  I'm a nerd, I know.  Moving on...then I just made sense of all the mess.  I organzied all the cans and jars in nice little rows.  Then I added the flour and sugar containers on my new 'baking' shelf.  I took out all the things we rarely use, like vinegar, molasses, and small baking stuff like baking soda/powder, cocoa powder, Pam, and vegetable oil and put all that in the litle now-vacant cabinet above the stove.  Can we talk about the vegetable oil for a sec?

None of it is expired.  Only 2 of them are open.  Why?  I think I must buy it when I'm planning a baking project, without checking the cabinet first to see if I have it, but this is pathetic.  The good news is that I won't have to buy any until 9/2013 when the last one expires, unless I naturally use it all before then, which I can't see happening :)


Here's the new and improved small cabinet, full of baking supplies.  It's not really that full; I used the 'pull everything to the front to make the shelf look more full' method used during my days at Target.  

...and here's the new and improved pantry:

It really doesn't look that different from that angle - here's a better view:

Now when I want a Nutella and banana sammich, I knew just where to reach to get my Nutella :)  Hopefully this layout will last!  Also, here's hoping a method for organizing those spices will come to me in my sleep tonight!