Finally the pantry reveal

A few weekends back I spent a couple hours removing every item from the pantry, sorting the junk and then putting what was necessary back into it. It's not totally complete (I want a couple tall containers for the cereal and pasta and a spice rack that the hubby will hopefully build me) but close enough that I feel comfortable exposing it to you all.

First and foremost, I take advantage of the space being empty by giving it a good cleaning. I wiped the shelves first and then I swept and mopped the floor. Now that it is all sparkly and new, the easy part is next. Toss everything that is expired, crusty (some of our spices were so old that I didn't even recognize the lables any more) and whatever will not be eaten (Hamburger Helper-hurts the tummy) is put into a box for donation. Then instead of the "big" items ie-bread maker and George Foreman taking up shelf space I put them on the ground under the lowest shelf. Then I arranged the shelves into categories that I thought would be easiest for me to control.

• Canned Foods 
• Baking Items
• Spices/cooking oils
• Drinks 
• Non-Perishable Items/boxed items

I put all of the cocoa packets, apple cider packets and crystal light packets into a storage bin and labled it accordingly. This was to cut down on the amount of boxes and space this took up. In addition to that bin, I created another bin that holds numerous items like sprinkles, gravy packets, toothpicks etc and labled it accordingly.

Now that everything has a home (shelf) the really fun part can start. I was agonizing over how I would hang my new chalkboard labels from the shelves. I could tie them and then tape them to the underside of the shelf. But then I thought, what if the tape doesn't hold up; I don't want to constantly fiddle with this. I could totally remove the shelves and put in wired shelves so that I can tie them onto it with ribbon but that would be a HUGE expense. So I went with my trusty friend, the glue gun, for support. It will hold the items and when we no longer wish for the shelves to be labled (Yeah riiighhht, like that will ever happen) then I can easily scrape the hot glue off the shelves.

While I had my hot glue gun out I decided to hot glue the picture holder to the back of the chalkboard instead of drilling a hole into the board. It's not that I am lazy, well not entirely, but the board in my opinion is too thin and I wasn't about to wreck what I just did. -

Here is the before:

After:

What do you think? I used what I had so I didn't have to spend a ton of money organizing this space but I had grand ideas, really grand but sometimes the pocketbook doesn't always agree with the brain.