The kitchen pantry after my family has had the run of the house.
The pictures should make it obvious why I chose the pantry however, you don't have the additional pleasure of the smell I was breathing. Ironically, the smell was not from the pantry but from an orange that had missed the trash can and was sprouting underneath the kitchen sink! Not so fresh! Now, I shouldn't complain. I do have some sort of pantry and I am happy to have a roof over my head (and the last pantry I had was under the stairwell and you could only squat in there and that is exactly what a opossum did - long, and really funny story, but for another post). The people who built our house, let's just say to be nice, did not think things through. My kitchen island is shaped like a triangle (ridiculous waste of space), the girls bathroom is only big enough for 1 person at a time (seriously not an over-exaggeration), and the pantry, while it looks fun and practical, is really just a HUGE pain-in-the-@$$! To get to anything in the back, you have to pull out the movable shelves in front. If you do it in a hurry, items have been known to throw themselves at you!
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| It's amazing how quickly stuff accumulates! I did clean our the side doors and the movable shelves in front before I remembered to take any photos. Sorry about that! |
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| Once I cleared everything out, I read labels. Those pickles were "Best By 3/2010"!!! |
So what's a girl to do when her pantry is a disaster? Hit the stores for the perfect organizational items. Now we have The Container Store opening up in March but I just couldn't wait that long. I hit up my local Bed, Bath and Beyond and the minute I walked in the store, they had exactly what I was looking for, right there on the end cap. It was literally like a light was shining from up-above right on it. Now I did a lot of Pinterest browsing and blog reading before heading to the store. I knew I was going to spend a lot of money but here's my reasoning. One blog lady had redone her pantry and it looked beautiful. She spent $48 on her containers; they were all purchased at the Dollar Store. She did comment that some of them had already broken but since they were cheap, she could easily replace them. Well, I have never been called cheap and was always told 3 things by my parents - Order what you want, eat what you order - Always buy the best you can afford - You get what you pay for. Yes, my parents did share other little pearls of wisdom with me but those came to mind first and two out of three actually apply here. I don't believe in wasting $48 for things that won't keep my food fresh (money running down the sink) or I have to replace every couple of weeks. Therefore, I armed myself with 12 coupons, yes, I said 12 and no, I have never appeared on Extreme Couponing. Did you know that you can use as many coupons, current or expired, all at the same time at B, B & B? I learned that the last time I was there and splurging on a Dyson cordless vacuum (again, a perfect example of you get what you pay for because that thing rocks and sucks . . . but only in a good way!).
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| I won't tell you my total but you could probably figure it out if you are good with math!! |
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| My pretties! I did do some organizing in the fridge also but not 100% sure about that yet. The labels are still on while I decide if the spacing is ok. |
I'm sure this will be fabulous but I am still tortured by the master bath "before" photo-when do we see the after?
ReplyDeleteThat makes me laugh! You won't see the after until I actually clean the bathroom or I get the maids here. Probably the next week or two. I will get it done eventually. Sorry, maybe this is the reason for your lack of sleep!
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