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Pantry Parade!

This post goes beyond keeping it real. I'm keeping it unbelievably real.

My pantry was the one place in my house that was in complete and utter disarray. I am not sure why we let it spiral out of control like we did, but we did and let's just say that it's not one of my proudest moments.

Meet the "Before".



Oh. My. Gracious.

I know what you're thinking...."what TWO people could have THAT amount of junk?"

And this is where I cowardly raise my hand.



My face is red from humiliation. This little place tucked away in the corner of our kitchen slowly became the "catch all". There were boxes upon boxes of expired items that had been shoved to the back, wasting room and making my life miserable.

I stumbled upon this and gasped:



Seriously, Whitney? 2007? That is just wrong on so many levels.

So.

I spent 4 hours in the kitchen completely emptying the entire pantry, organizing and putting everything back. That is, after I filled FIVE trash sacks full of junk and expired food.



There should be some sort of law against this. I mean it.

After much grumbling and murmuring, I finally finished.

Meet the "After".



No. The basket on the bottom left is not filled only with rice crispy treats. I have an assortment of granola bars and stuff in there and the rice crispy's happened to be the last box in. :)



My camera was on a weird setting so I apologize for the blurriness. It's annoying, I know, because you can't read my labels as well. I know you are all dying to know what brand of breadcrumbs I use.



Isn't it fun seeing what other people eat? Don't judge us by our crazy amounts of cereal and our (ahem) two packages of powdered donuts.



Do baked chips counteract donuts? I pretend they do.

Anyway, I was super proud of the results. I vow to never let my pantry spiral out of control again. Installing the shelves doubled my storage space and now I can actually see what I have without hunkering over and wanting to scream.

Husby came to the rescue and installed the handy dandy door shelf for our canned goods!



Isn't he a cutie?



Yes, my kitchen looks like it exploded. That's because it did. The pantry threw up and it went all over the kitchen.

But now it feels much better and so do I.



A fully stocked, fully organized pantry is a wonderful thing to have. Phew. Glad that's done!

Hope you enjoyed me keeping it real. Maybe next time I'll show you our garage. Wait. Not gonna happen. ;)
I am a modern day homemaker with a passion for family, cooking, celebrating, decorating, travel, and memory making! The Lord has blessed me with the desires of my heart in my husband and our two sons. We recently built our dream home and cultivating a loving and happy haven for my family is where I find so much joy.

Comments

  1. Yay! You did it. And, it looks amazing. It feels so good to be organized. Good job you little "nesting" momma!

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  2. Yay, way to make the most of the nesting instinct. Maybe I need to get pregnant again.....NOT, ha ha h
    thanks for the inspiration.

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  3. Inspiration for me to organize mine! It is in shambles right now and it too drives me crazy!! I like the baskets and shelves and the can organizer. Looks great! Oh, and le Nursh is AMAZING!! LOVE IT!!

    Kelly

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  4. WOW! Look at that pantry! What a fantastic job you did, I'm on my way to decluttering and organizing my entire life and your pantry is inspiring!

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  5. my pantry could be your pantries twin... maybe you should come organize mine next!

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  6. Wow, that looks really great... I'm kind of jealous of how big it is... and now how organized it is! Haha, good for you to get it out of the way so you don't have to worry once Levi gets here and starts taking up all your time!

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  7. It is gorgeous!!!!
    I L-O-V-E cleaning out my pantry and closets!
    It feels SO good to get rid of the old and make it all look so pretty!

    I think I would just open the door to stare in there!

    And you are allowed to eat all the donuts you want, your preggers!

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  8. Ahh...like a breath of fresh air. I love organizing! Of course, you may not guess that by what my house looks like. This was a project where you could have called me and I would LOVE to help! That's makes me want to go find something and organize it. Thanks, Whitney!

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  9. You did a great job! My pantry looked like that and I organized it last weekend. I am sure I will have to do it again, though, before my baby gets here! I really like the can holder for the door, mine just holds spices.

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  10. Whitney: Your pantry looks great. Where did you find the shelves? I can only find the wire ones and they do not work as well as the ones you show. thanks

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  11. whitney, it. is. beautiful. i cannot tell you how much i love to clean and organize and this post was like chocolate for my eyes. that makes no sense, but you know what i mean.

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  12. HA! My favorite part is the boxes left half open in the before picture. My husband tells me they "magically" reopen like that on their own after he has carefully closed and put it away in its proper pantry place....yea right.

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  13. Somebody's nesting.....

    Looks great! I have a pantry...hubby's been telling me he'd put the shelves in for oh wait 18 months now...so its a big mound of appliances and bags and what not. Total mess. I think we have the same granite countertops LOL! Love your high ceilings! And I thought our were higher then average LOL

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  14. I've been there... its amazing how much old food you have when you actually go through everything!

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  15. You guys have a ton of food. If we ever have an ice storm again, you will be prepared! :) It looks so good now! I'm very impressed. Do you own 3 crock pots?!? Oh, Whitney you never cease to amaze me! You are going to be the ultimate church dinner lady bringing in crock pot after crock pot of homeade goodness!

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  16. You did an amazing job!! Looks great! Don't worry about the before pictures...my pantry & trash can have definitely seen days like that! :)

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  17. it looks awesome! I need to do this to my pantry... tomorrow...hehe

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  18. Amazing, Impressive and Astounding! I'm so jealous!!!
    :)

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  19. Good job!

    And... I am feeling inspired! I am finishing up my school year today and need some projects to organize and declutter for our Baby H, too. He will be here in July, and he would be embarressed by the shape of our pantry and the dirty factor of our baseboards.

    Off I go!

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  20. What is that white platter looking thing with an A on it in the last picture? I simply cannot figure it out.

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  21. LOVE the finished product! what a wonderfully organized and beautiful pantry! now just make some room for baby food in a few months :)

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  22. I have a routine of cleaning out our fridge every week when I go grocery shopping. I love it. I go through and throw away leftovers we never ate, old milk, yogurts that expired. Its so cleansing. But it drives my husband crazy! He's always complaining that I throw things away when I don't need to. Its always been a sore spot in our marriage. We may need counseling.

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  23. It looks great! I totally wish I had a pantry! I have my stuff stashed away in kitchen cabinets! A pantry is a requirement for my next house! :)

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  24. You have so much food! Wow. Love the after, so organized. I noticed you had your veg oil laying down. Might want to stand it up. I noticed mine leaked mysteriously from the cap despite being tightly closed. Wouldn't want that to ruin the perfection you have going on!

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  25. Oh my gosh, you have so much food!! I can't believe it!! We don't have a pantry, so I'm used to keeping things to a bare minimum. Holy cow!!! If we had that much food, there would be more than five bags of expired stuff. There's no way we would be able to eat it all!

    Love the organization!! It looks fantastic and it's great that you worked on it before little Levi comes! Good thinking!!

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  26. Your pantry is HUGE!! Color me jealous!!

    ~ Sarah

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  27. Man - Darin is really tall. & I LOVE to organize, so this post thrilled my soul.

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  28. The pantry looks great. I know you feel better now that it is done.

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  29. You did a great job organizing that pantry, even w/o your mom-in-law's help. :) After you filled 5 trash bags with food, you still have more than I ever had when we were a family of 4 (or 5, counting Papaw). Isn't it crazy that, now that there are only 2, I have a pantry the size of CD's first bedroom????? How ironic!

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  30. Oh ... and your sis-in-law will have a fantastic pantry by next week. Yippee for fantastic pantries in the family!!!!

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  31. Wow!! That was some pantry girl! (o: Your afters pics looked great - way to get organized!

    My pantry isn't too bad, but you've totally inspired me to get one of those racks to put on the door and some fun bins to make it look nicer in there like you did. Any excuse for me to nest!!

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  32. your pantry looks great now! i went through the same thing with my car a couple days ago. our house is small, so it's hard to keep clutter free, but we do an okay job with it. but the car... ugh! we hadn't cleaned it out in a couple months and it wasn't that clean to begin with (and the windows had been left down during a storm and it smelled). i finally cleaned everything out and vacuumed and sprayed half a bottle of f'breeze all over it. it's like a brand new car now. *sigh*

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  33. I'm impressed! What a transformation. I love doing stuff like this because it feels so good once you are finished! :)

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  34. Way to go!! Now Levi is definitely ready to come out :-)

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  35. Your pantry looks great!! I love the baskets on the bottom shelf and your shelves for your canned goods.

    Good job!!

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  36. Amazing!! I wish I had all that food! I went to make dinner last night and didn't have a can of Cream of Chicken. Now that's a problem! And look at you, you have at least 5 cans! You're my hero!! LOL

    ~Steph

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  37. Wow you have a nice size pantry, great job on the organizing.

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  38. Awesome!

    ps. I've been told (by my 80 something yr old neighbor, and my 63yr old mother, both EXCELLENT bakers) that Crisco keeps a million times longer in the fridge! Plus, the rule of baking is 'Make it Cold, Bake it Hot', so that makes sense too. ;-)

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  39. If you need someone to help you eat those powdered donuts, you know where to find me. Good job!

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  40. Wow, amazing! It look amazing!!!

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  41. I admit two things:

    1) I thought at first that this post was titled "Panty Update". I got a little worried.

    2) Once I saw the Cheez-Its in the first picture, my mind couldn't focus on anything else.

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  42. Oh, you made me want to go home and organize! I love your use of shelves and bins. It definitely makes it more user friendly. And, I know what you mean about the blurry weird setting pictures. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to shoot on manual in artificial lighting. It stinks!

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  43. girl i know that was a lot of work but it looks great :) i love organizing!!!

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  44. Is that just not the BEST feeling in the world?!!! It's like you just want to sit in your pantry and be with all that is organized.

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  45. Great job!!!! Organization will make a huge difference!!! I NEED to clean our junk out!!

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  46. yay! now Levi can come out and play and you don't have to worry about the pantry throwing up on him!!! ;) btw, the Nersh is breathtaking! a lot like what i would do with a nursery (and can hopefully do one day soon!) :D

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  47. YOU DID AN AMAZING JOB!!! I wish our pantry looked like that! I love to little baskets at the bottom, and teh size is perfect!

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  48. Your "after" photo makes my OCD happy. :)

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  49. WOW - what a great task to knock off your list! I love watching people nest...it satisfying to the core :)

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  50. Wow, Wow, Wow! nothing is more beautiful to me than a perfectly organized closet! i love it!!!

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  51. Wow..Congrats. It looks GREAT!
    You can come do mine if you want..it's out of contol! :)

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  52. Yay! So often, people blog about the perfect parts of their lives (understandably; who doesn't want to share the good?), and I end up feeling like I'm the only one out there who struggles with being imperfect. :-) Thanks for keeping it real! I love your re-do!

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  53. I think you just may win the award for the most food in a pantry. I'm just jealous that you have a proper pantry. You did a great job and now you can remember what you have to eat!

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  54. Your pantry looks amazing! You get a big thumbs up from me!!!

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  55. Good job! As a tip, I love my wire shelves on the door of our pantry. I use them for things I get out often, like rice and pasta.

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  56. Messy or not---totally jealous of your kitchen!

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  57. Don't you just love that door rack? I have it too and it is wonderful. We desperately needed the additional space.

    I'll come over anytime as long as you have 2 bags of donuts in the pantry. Yum!

    Good luck with the baby!!

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