Project Simplify–The Pantry

March 16, 2012 By 4 Comments

Simple Mom is hosting a Spring Cleaning/Organization event this month called Project Simplify and this week’s project is kids’ stuff.

Our small fridge is really quite organized, so I decided to focus on the pantry.  For any of you who are new to Getting Through the Day, our pantry was originally intended to be the maid quarters.  It’s just a little larger than a twin sized bed.  When we moved in, there was actually a mattress on the floor!
I feel like I organize our pantry about once a month.  Because there’s constant food going in and out of it, it tends to get messy quick.  The biggest problem, however, was all of the things in the pantry that really don’t belong there…
…like golf clubs and an empty guitar case!
Do you see the box on the right of the top shelf in the picture above?  I’ve taken it down multiple times over the last few years, looked in it, and decided to keep the stuff that’s in it.  You know what stuff I’m talking about…the stuff that “I’ll keep because one day I might use it”.  It’s time to simplify and purge it!
We always have a lot of extra drinks sitting on the floor blocking our path after a big shopping trip.
And then, there’s the little bathroom beside the pantry.  Things that don’t fit in the pantry have spilled out into that space.
Maybe we should play a game of I Spy…  I spy a kitchen door, a toilet, a double stroller, a fire extinguisher, and some Sprite.  Unfortunately, after multiple attempts to fix the toilet, we finally gave up and just started stacking things in this space.
I pulled the two shelves out and cleaned under them for the first time in 5 years!

 We’ve always stuck the little vacuum cleaner hose under there to get the dirt, but after 5 years there was sticky gunk all over the floor.

I added a few baskets for food.  Because of the slats in the shelves, we had a lot of problems getting some things to stay on the shelves.  We also had to stack at the back so things wouldn’t fall off, so the fronts of the shelves were pretty empty.  The baskets gave us more usable space on the shelves.

I was able to take everything out of the room that wasn’t food or food related except for the vacuum cleaner, and was able to stack our extra drinks in the corner so they wouldn’t be in our way when we walk in and out of the pantry.

I didn’t change much in the “bathroom”, but I was able to get the kitchen door out of there!  Just in case you are wondering, we removed the door from the kitchen a few months ago.  The doorway is very narrow, and felt even smaller with the door.  So, we took it off!

If we can ever figure out how to get the toilet fixed, I’ll get the double stroller out of there as well!  And just in case you are wondering why there’s a double stroller in our pantry area, we actually use it for transporting all of our groceries from the parking garage to our 7th floor apartment.  Makes perfect sense, right? ;)
I love what I was able to accomplish in my pantry this week and that I can walk into it without tripping over things!  Have you been doing any spring cleaning?

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Comments

  1. Heather says:
    March 16, 2012 at 5:32 am

    Great job! Your pantry looks like mine :-) Although I didn't get a chance to make it look nice this week, I worked on my fridge. Our pantry is actually in the entry way of our house, so it becomes a big cluster of junk all over the place. I am hoping to get to it this weekend though! Thanks for the inspiration!

    Reply
  2. April says:
    March 16, 2012 at 8:43 am

    great job!

    Reply
  3. Jenn says:
    March 16, 2012 at 11:28 am

    Nice job! It feels so good to get things clean and organized! Looking forward to seeing your new blog design. :)

    Reply
  4. Josh says:
    March 20, 2012 at 7:43 am

    Your pantry has many of the same food things our does! I can tell we have similar Metro lists! Glad to know someone else’s spends as much as we do at Metro!

    Reply

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