The Pantry is Organized!
Thank goodness for school holidays! Surely they timed it with “spring” cleaning for a reason? We have got to work on our pantry! When I say work I mean culling, scrubbing, sorting, buying and rearranging. Are you ready? Here it is….
What an improvement. It is now neat, organised, compartmentalised, accessible and CLEAN!
and because I LOVE before and after photos…..
I am sure I don’t need to tell you how we did it. But it certainly helps if you are in a culling frame of mind because boy did we find some things that needed to get thrown out! (That is a whole other post!)
Top shelf (where the Earl Gray used to be hiding!)
L to R – Medication, Coffee and Tea collection. Drink Coolers. Serviettes, Paper towel and Alcohol. Behind the alcohol is our our punch bowl and Coffee perculator.
Middle Shelf One – Pasta and Rice in new containers. Noodles. Baby Food. Tins and jars – Stocks and Gravy’s. Spices. Oils and Vinegars.
Middle Shelf Two- Baking goods. Sachets. Back basket food archive. Front Basket snacks. Spreads. Food Colouring. The sneaky rice bubble container to keep it away from little fingers!
Bottom Shelf. Trail mix. Cereals. Vegetables including our own home grown pumpkin! Drinks. Behind the cereal is spare cereal and another food archive.
On the Floor. A NEW STEP LADDER! So I can reach the top shelf!
Containers..
Here is a closer look
We used mostly these clear handled storage caddies from Kmart. They cost $3. It is great to see inside the containers and they are easy to remove and put on the bench when you are cooking! The large container for oils and vinegars was from Howards Storage World. They are called a “Separator” and come in a variety of sizes. This one is the biggest! We also bought our tin and jar holder from Howard’s. The two containers came to $24.95. In the catalogue they have it called a pull out organiser. It has little wheels on the back to help it glide in and out of your pantry. It is a must have! The clean out revealed that where our tins were sitting the paint on the shelves has started to chip and peel! If you can’t find the caddy’s at Kmart, Howard’s had a huge range of all different sizes from about $4.95. Boy could we have spent up in that store! Next purchase is a gorgeous spice rack and something better to hold the veggies in!
The wicker baskets were also from Kmart and were $9 each. I was so excited to find these as I have baskets similar to these all over the house that I bought from IKEA 4 years ago and now IKEA doesn’t stock them anymore! They also come in brown.
To be ABSOLUTLEY honest. In a dream world I would have decked the pantry out in Tupperware. BUT I am impatient and I wanted to do it now! We achieved all of this for under $140 (Including the step ladder!). The Tell Fresh Decor containers were drastically reduced at BIG W. They are easy to stack, easy to label and come in a massive range of shapes and sizes. To use Tupperware would have cost close to $500. So not in our budget right now. I particularly would love to save for better cereal containers from tupperware to maintain freshness. After looking at all the gorgeous pantries online I noticed they were all decked out in Tupperware but I wanted to show you that they don’t have to be! There are other great practical options out there that are less expensive.
So what do you think???