Super Cheap Pantry Overhaul

Something that was really beautiful about our Berryville house was that we were buying it from someone who flips houses for a living. It had originally been a foreclosure in bad shape - most of the 1970 fixtures and decor was apparently still present - and he replaced all the sheetrock, installed tile floors, restored the original hardwood floors, and completely replaced the kitchen and two of the three bathrooms. All things that make a house really and truly wonderful. There's something to be said to the "we'll renovate the whole house ourselves" approach, and we would love to do that someday in the future, but there's also something lovely about being able to walk into a house knowing that all the parts that determine how liveable a house is are all brand new. There's plenty we've done to the house since we moved in and we have a humongo list of things we still want to do over the next many years, but it's also been a huge relief knowing that the biggies had been done for us. All of that being said...there are a couple rooms in the house that have made me slightly crazy since we moved in that I've been looking for a chance to fix. One of those is the pantry.

Our pantry is truly awesome, I should say. It was one of the aspects of the house that really sold me, to be honest. In our old house our pantry was a typical tiny closet that didn't really fit our food much less anything else, and this one is magically huge. I'm able to stock up on both food and paper goods Costco style, which is my favorite way to stock up. But there was little to no organization, which is what drove me crazy. I've spent the last six months or so thinking about what specific organizational tools I needed to make me happier and the whole room more productive. I hadn't really tried to go shopping or start the organizational process, though, because I just assumed it would be a fortune to get the various bins and baskets that I needed....but after a pregnancy-induced breakdown a week and a half ago the hubs encouraged/pushed me to do some price checking and to see what I could find. The next day I found everything I needed at none other than the Dollar Tree for a whopping $9 total. Husbands really are smart.

This is the before shot.

A. I told you it was huge, and B. I somehow manage to clutter it up on a regular basis. The first step to organizing it was cleaning and weeding out what was taking up space for no reason. Some embarrassing examples? The completely empty Coke can box that was left in there empty who knows how long ago by my sister (we don't drink Coke but kept some stocked for my family when they visit, and I never noticed it was empty). The two gallon water jug that's been a couple glasses of water away from being empty for about two months that I hadn't ever bothered to just empty and toss. Etc. etc. I also cleaned out some of the existing storage bins that I'd been using that I'd noticed over time weren't working very well for the space. If they're not being helpful, why keep them? Then I filled the new bins I got from the Dollar Tree with the items I'd planned ahead for.

These bins were born out of moments of desperation; before when I'd tried to organize items in bigger, less specific bins, they would all get buried under each other and I would always just assume there were more under there somewhere until I went to grab something and I realized I was out. I wanted a more visually helpful way of organizing, where things were corralled but still out in the open enough for me to easily see when I needed to buy more. So here are some after shots.

Some of these containers - all the bigger baking containers and the ones with pasta, rice, and cereal - I've had for a long time and have been really great. But the new ones have changed the functionality of the room so much. Items like the instant potatoes, grits, and seasonings all got moved from one huge enclosed bin to the smaller, open ones so I can easily see what I have and what I need to buy. Massive rearranging also took place, moving items around like puzzle pieces to try to get the most logical use of each shelf; all the baking things are on the same shelf and all the grains/pasta/cereal are on the same shelf. Packaged items that I buy in bulk - like applesauce and fruit cups - all got a new home in one of the enclosed bins and therefore freed up a whole lot of shelf space. All in all, I think it's a much better and more productive system. Plus, some other minor tweaks left the whole room feeling a lot more clean and freshened up (like removing the grungy carpet segment that was on the floor originally because we thought it would add some warmth but instead became huge piece of dog hair and dust collector that was impossible to clean, and taking out the huge pieces of cardboard that had been propped up against the wall for a year because I thought I'd put them down as a hard surface for the shelves).

So here's the overall before and after:

Before

After

Even though these tiny - and cheap! - changes have made a huge difference in the functionality of the pantry, there are a couple things left on my to-do list for this room that will happen someday down the road to add even more function.

• add more shelves to wrap around the back wall
• potentially redo the shelving system with solid wood shelves
• paint the walls to add some color
• make a weekly menu board
• make a mass inventory board to chart food inventory and shopping needs

 But all in all, none of that is an emergency and will get done someday, with time. For now, this room is giving me many less headaches than before. And for a mere $9, I'm pretty okay with that.