The Pantry

 The long awaited pantry post. Let's call this the first of two as I have some labeling to do and no time right now, but soon, soon. I promise.

So I was on this super organizing kick and then my label maker ran out of tape. (Super sad face)

It took a few days but I was able to get a new stock of labeling tape. So upward and onward! 

Before. Stuffed. Unorganized. Wasted food and space. 

Emptied with the help of my lovely assistant. 

Yowza, tha'ts a lot of food! 

Behold! The new pantry!

First, I discovered that elfa makes plastic liners for the wire shelves. That changes everything! I bought three!
Upper shelf: Snack bin with snacks for the kids. I'll dump boxes of granola bars and fruit strips in here and like last week I'll pop a big batch of popcorn on Sunday and divide it up and/or divide up some trail mix or nuts. Our kids LOVE nuts! Then there's the  "Mommy/Daddy" snacks on top of the new shelf,  and bread flour and sugar bins below the shelf.

Next shelf is bread crumbs, and popcorn in mason jars on the left (for you Paul) and then two bins with cracker and flour, then grain containers.(All IKEA) Cereal, cereal, oatmeal, long pasta, short pasta, aborio rice. 

A step shelf so you can see everyting. Whatever jars or cans we have will go on this shelf. Right now we have an obscene amount of frosting and peanut butter on this shelf. 

I had two leftover bins from the freezer that I am going to do some fun labeling with . Then I have a tea container, and a the hanging shelf is for the extra tea we have on hand. I didn't include a picture of the bottom of the pantry but you can see there is a hanging shelf for onions and one for bread and then bulky items like our protein powder and Sam's Club supplies (coffee, vinegar)

IKEA tea container. Awesome. I was thinking of getting one and actually didn't realize that was what this container was for when I grabbed it but that's what I was going to use it for! We're really into tea these days. Thank you Mr. Chris! (Kachow!)

Lets take a look at the grain containers one more time, shall we? I woke up yesterday to find Mr. Sloth sweating over the stove making steel cut oats because he couldn't find the oatmeal. He didn't realize that I had put it in this pretty container and had yet to label the pretty-adorable-neat looking container.

So,there you have it, the new and improved pantry. It had been working great for two weeks now with only a slight learning curve. Also, for those who are interested the freezer has been AWESOME! I'll never go back, never again. I originally found this idea of iheartorganizing you may have to scroll down a bit in the link but she used the same containers for her freezer and she has top bottom freezer as opposed to our side by side.  The refrigerator has also been a blessing. It's the longest we've ever kept a refrigerator clean but there is some maintenance. I purposely left some flex space for when we just get groceries or will have items in the fridge only momentarily. This confuses Mr. Sloth but he doesn't complain and tries to learn the system. Not only has our refrigerator remained clean and organized but food hasn't gone bad and we're using more food efficiently. I go to the leftovers/dinner shelf first when looking for a snack and if we keep that focus we'll keep a clean and organized refrigerator.

Next I'll tell you how we got nothing done this weekend because our kitchen sink clogged hours before Mr. Sloth left on a business trip. So much fun.