Pantry Re-do!

So a couple of weekends ago I finally decided to tackle the wreck that was my pantry.  I clean it out probably once a year but it soon gets back to a mess because (I'm passing the blame here) it's a really poorly designed pantry.  The shelves are so deep that you can't really tell what is back there.  I think it was originally a broom closet that some previous owner changed over.  Here you can see the before picture, which shows the top and bottom of my pantry.  (I was too lazy to change the lens on my camera so I couldn't get the whole thing in one shot!)

So after taking the before pictures, I unloaded everything onto the kitchen table.  It was FULL and I don't really even cook!  Soon I filled up two garbage bags of expired canned goods, opened containers that had been open too long, and food that I don't know how it got in there because I would never eat it!

Then I categorized all the food into groups:  spices and seasonings, paper goods (left over from parties and such), canned veggies, canned soups, etc.  After browsing pinterest I decided I would buy plastic containers for each thing.  I already had a two drawer rubbermaid container in the bottom of my pantry, that I would reorganize.

I went to shopping and got lots for about $20.  When I arranged them in my pantry I KNEW this would be the key, because now I can see exactly what I have without having to move things around.  The last step was to make labels.  I found a template and copied her style.  And made some new labels on cardstock. I taped them to the containers, and I was done!  Now every time I open my pantry I do a little happy dance!

If you would like the file of the labels you can click here!