a new pantry space

Sometimes I feel like I am constantly fidgeting with and straightening up the same places in my house. My pantry is one of them. It’s so small and non-functional for someone who likes to cook, and doesn’t like to hit the grocery store daily!

So there’s this closet in our basement hallway where the overflow food/paper goods go til I need them. And it was a mess. The nice big closet basically functioned as extra space to throw things, but not nearly to it’s potential. The sad plastic shelving was too wimpy, and those bins made it so I never had a clue what was in there. So many times, I would go toss an extra bottle of ketchup I got in sale in one of those bins… to find 5 more bottles of ketchup. Or something ridiculous. Every time I looked in there for something I would get irritated! Here’s the before {it’s been organized lots of times but would always go back to this}:

Eek!

So a few weekends ago, I asked my husband to put some shelves in there for me. Nice, heavy duty ones that spanned the whole width. He did me way better than that – he installed a light inside the closet {!} and painted the shelves for me while he was at it! After some sorting, stacking and labeling on my part, here’s what we’ve now got working as our kitchen overflow {let’s just ignore that I really need to get a better camera for taking indoor/closeup shots- it looks much neater in person somehow…}:

Maybe one of the best things is that smaller bin on the bottom, which now neatly houses all the misc paper plates, napkins, and plastic cups and utensils that were previously… all over the place. I love them all in one place so I can actually use them up instead of buying new stuff always.

And below, hampers for towels and such from the downstairs bathroom {our washer and dryer are in a closet, thus no hamper space in there}, a basket of extra blankets, and some plastic drawers containing spare lightbulbs, batteries, and cables/cords/wiring/power strips.

I LOVE LOVE my new pantry space. With better shelving I was able to further empty out the upstairs pantry so I can truly see what I’ve got in there. And I love having space household things like toilet paper, dishwasher soap, and batteries all in one place! It’s soooo much more efficient and convenient. This nice closet was previously just wasted space – sad! Since my kitchen has nowhere to grow, all I can do is find ways to better use the space I do have. Perfect!

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