Pantry Organization

I am a hot mess when it comes to organization and tend to just throw things on the floor or counters, rather than putting them away. My desk at work it often piled with papers that are in the process of being graded, have already been graded and need to be passed back, or need to be graded. My student assistant cleans up my desk for me at least twice a month!

Even worse than my desk is my pantry. I buy a lot of items in bulk, and then just toss them in the cabinent, still in the plastic bag from the grocery store. Or I transfer it (flour, sugar, dried coconut, etc) to Ziplock bags, which I label, but then again, just throw them in the cupboard, with no real rhyme or reason.

Look at what I am talking about! A huge mess, right?!



Beyond the fact that my pantry looks extremely disheveled, the mess also leads me to forget what items I have in stock, so I tend to buy the same things over and over, despite having a plentiful stock on hand.

Last Sunday, while the husband napped on the couch, and after finishing my 3 store grocery shopping trip, I finally decided to tackle the mess. I headed out to Wal-Mart, bought tons of glass storage jars and a package of labels, then headed home to empty and organize.

This is that same cabinet from the last picture, but all cleaned up. Amazing, right?!



Here's the shelf above it, which was just as messy to begin with.






I have what seems like a million types of flours (AP white, AP whole wheat, whole wheat bread, whole wheat pastry), brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon sticks, sesame seeds, slivered almonds, whole almonds, milk chocolate chips and semi-sweet chocolate chips (we kept pulling our bag after bag of these delicious morsels; I'd even bought more during my grocery trip that morning, thinking I was running low!), and a ton of other pantry staples. Now, rather than digging through bags and bags of bulk items, I can just grab the canister it resides in and go.

There are a few items that are still in ziplock bags; most of those items are things I don't purchase often, so I didn't feel the need to spend the money on jars for them, when a ziplock bag will work fine.

Next up cleaning and organizing my spices, liquids, and other cooking supplies (bread crumbs, panko, cornmeal, etc).