Pantry Organization

Happy Tuesday Friends! I hope your week has been off to a great start and you are feeling organized and ready for the rest of the week.

A few weeks back I shared my coat closet organization, and since I've been on an organizing tick, I thought I would share another space I went through and did some de-cluttering and organizing.  This past weekend Justin and I had some down time at home and since I could not paint the mud room/ powder room {we didn't have the proper tools for me to do so}, I took some time to go to the At Home store and get some more organize boxes for our pantry! I was thrilled when I was looking around that I was able to find matching boxes for the ones I purchased last year.

I knew I wanted to have some storage boxes in the space to help me keep food and other items grouped up and organized so when I found these boxes, I was super excited! So of course I came home and started pulling everything out of my pantry and started getting everything organized!

So here's the result!

Before

I have to be honest, I am quite a bit embarrassed by how awful this space is.  When I started pulling everything out, I decided I would divide it by food and non-food items.  The food items went on the island in the kitchen and the non-food items went into the dining room.  Doing this allowed me to see how much of our pantry was being used to store food and how much was being used to store random stuff that did not belong in the pantry.

Once everything was pulled out of the pantry, I took some time to deep clean everything.  This included wiping down the shelves and vacuuming and mopping the floor.

Here's what the pantry looked like after I gave it a good cleaning.  It is amazing how much bigger the space looked once it was emptied and cleaned.

After

Once everything was cleaned out, I started going through the food and trashing anything that had expired or is something that we no longer needed/went bad.  This eliminated quite a significant amount of food that we had not eaten before it had expired.  I also took the chance to go through all of our small appliances and miscellaneous other items that we had been storing in the space.  As a result, we ended up deciding to get rid of some of our storage items, our spice rack and one or two small appliances.

Once we had decided what to get rid of, we started putting the items into the bins and organizing the space so that food went on one side (for the most part) an the appliances and miscellaneous items were on the left.  That way things were easy to find and have a distinct spot.

Since I organized the space, I smile every time I walk into the pantry and feel so much better.  

Question of the Day: What space in your home needs a face lift? 

I'd love to hear from you!

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Disclosure: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. Read my full disclosure policy here.

Coat Closet Organization

Happy Thursday Friends! I hope your week has been great so far and you are looking forward to a fun weekend ahead!

So how many of you have a space in your home that just drives you absolutely crazy? For me there are several little spaces in our home that are getting to me, but the biggest one for me was our Coat Closet.  I was so excited when we moved into our house to have a bigger coat closet because "then we will have room for our coats and shoes!" But the truth was our close almost immediately became a hot mess.  We're talking shoes everywhere, coats a mess and the top shelf covered with who knows that and a frustrating eye sore for me every time I tried to hang a coat up at home.

And I could not IMAGINE having my guests hang their coats up in that space.  No WAY, Jose! That would just be too darn embarrassing for me.  So of course, I knew this was an issue, but like most things, I put it off for months.

Well not anymore! I was determined to use my time off around the holidays to get some organization done.  This project honestly was not hard to do, it was just a matter of hunkering down and doing the work for it.

So here's the result!

Before

{Also, I did not purposefully make the pictures almost line up, it kind of just happened}

Before I went ahead and tore up the space, I spent some time researching Amazon and found some storage boxes and some shoe racks so we would be able to not only see our shoes, but also have easy and organized access to our shoes.

These shoe racks were easy to assemble and had storage for about 9 pairs of shoes {unless you have smaller feet, then you could easily get 12 pairs of shoes directly on the shelf}.  I wanted something that would be sturdy that would also look nice, so this shoe rack was perfect for my needs.  The neat thing about this shoe rack is you can build on it! They can be stacked or connected to make the shelf taller or wider depending on your needs {you just need to get the necessary pieces for the expansion}.

When it came to storage boxes, I knew I wanted something with a handle because I am shorter and need to be able to grab the box down without too much difficulty.  When I came across these boxes, I knew immediately they were what I was looking for for this space! They do come disassembled, but they are easy to assemble and make such a cute and functional addition for the space.

The last little thing we had in there was the "Nick's Socks" bin.  This is more of a funny thing than anything, but my friend is always cold and was constantly asking to borrow socks, so for Christmas 2016 I bought him this caddy from Thirty-One, personalized it and filled it with wool socks so he would always have socks at our home that were just his.

Once I had all of the supplies available, I went to town and pulled everything out of the closet.  It is amazing how much we had randomly accrued in this space! So many things that are not coat closet "appropriate" but had landed there because they needed a place to hang.  Once the closet was emptied, I wiped everything down and vacuumed and mopped the floors.  While I was cleaning, Justin helped by building all of the shoe racks and helped build the boxes.

I also took the opportunity to purge a bunch of shoes and coats while I was in there because some of those shoes I had not worn since we moved into our house in June of 2016.  If the shoe didn't seem like my style anymore or like something I would wear again, I put it into a box to be donated or trashed it.

Once that was all done, I took the time to put everything back and organize it and this was the final result!

After

Does it not look so much nicer now? I love that I have a place for our shoes and coats as well as bins to store our hats, gloves, scarves and my sandals (since, it's 30 degrees in Michigan).  And of course I am so excited to have a spot for my guests to hang their coats when they visit!

Question of the Day: What space in your home needs a face lift? 

I'd love to hear from you!

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Disclosure: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. Read my full disclosure policy here.