As you will see from the picture, it was time to do some maintenance on the pantry, AGAIN.

, Cleaning Up the Pantry, Joyful Homemaking

When life gets crazy busy, my house seems to reflect it (which doesn’t help matters), so I’m thankful to have had some time this week to do some cleaning up and organizing.
I must say that the food you see in here doesn’t reflect our complete diet. The pantry holds more snack type foods than the rest of the kitchen does. We do have a separate cabinet for canned fruits, vegetables, soups and beans.
To get started, I took almost everything out so I could wipe down the shelves, and as I did, I checked expiration dates and for empty boxes. When I was done I had a pile of cardboard for recycling.

, Cleaning Up the Pantry, Joyful Homemaking 
 
In anticipation of organizing the pantry, I purchased of few of these containers to keep the kids crackers and  cereals airtight, and to hold my quinoa, flour and sugar.
 
, Cleaning Up the Pantry, Joyful Homemaking
 

Also, these little turntables work well for viewing and reaching different items in the pantry.

, Cleaning Up the Pantry, Joyful Homemaking

I also moved some of the kid’s cereals and snacks down so they could easily reach them.

, Cleaning Up the Pantry, Joyful Homemaking

A little tip–save your old jars (this was from pasta sauce) to store beans or grains.

, Cleaning Up the Pantry, Joyful Homemaking

Empty coffee creamer canisters can be used to hold kids’ little crackers, like gold fish snacks or dry cereal…

, Cleaning Up the Pantry, Joyful Homemaking

After cleaning and purging, repackaging and recycling, this is what I ended up with…
, Cleaning Up the Pantry, Joyful Homemaking
Much better, and now I know what I have, and can find what I need again.

 
 
 
, Cleaning Up the Pantry, Joyful Homemaking
 
 

I still love my shoe bag on the door for keeping track of lots of little things that tend to get lost in the back or on the bottom somewhere!

Blessings,
, Cleaning Up the Pantry, Joyful Homemaking

12 Comments

  1. Soooo much better I love using the jars as well aren’t they nice to look at when you open your pantry door?

  2. Your pantry looks great! We have sliding pantry doors so the shoe holder wouldn’t work for me but I do love the idea. I also took note of the turntable idea since stuff is always getting lost in the back of ours.

  3. I love your pantry redo! We don’t have a pantry, but we use the over the door shoe holder to organize all of our winter gear (hats, gloves, scarves, etc.) and in our upstairs bathroom to hold cleaning supplies.

    We’d love for you to consider sharing your posts on our blog each week by linking up to our Finished Friday blog party.

  4. WOW! Do your hire out? This looks amazing. I love the shoe holder idea on the door! Thanks for sharing this on our Strut Your Stuff Saturday! We love it! -The Six Sisters

  5. Nice! I’m jealous! I used to have mine organize all fancy, but maintaining it with 5 little kids and a husband who don’t care about my forward facing cans, categorized shelves, etc., I had to let it go. But, one of these days…it will be back, oh yes. And, it will feel good. 🙂 I would love to have you stop by ‘Or so she says…’ and share some of your great ideas at the link party, going on right now (every Sat-Tues). Hope to see you there! http://www.oneshetwoshe.com

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