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Pantry Makeover - The "Before"

The day has arrived! I finally have the pantry of my dreams! And today I'll show you the beginning of my pantry makeover.

It all started with this strange little closet:

(Please excuse the late night iPhone photo)

This little sink and closet is right inside our back door and was probably used when the farmer's came in from the field to get washed up before they went inside. A mud room of sorts. But the closet didn't have a door and was pretty useless the way it was set up. So my husband and I brainstormed for awhile on the best way to use this space, and the two best options we came up with was either 1) a second bathroom or 2) a pantry.

Because of the way the entrance is layed out and the location of the sink, there is no good way to get a door installed to turn it into a bathroom. We would basically have to use a glorified curtain. Who would use a bathroom right off the kitchen with no door? NOT ME! Not to mention how crammed it would be shoving a toilet in the back of that closet. I just was not seeing any sort of bathroom coming from this closet.

So we settled on a pantry. My husband installed some bracket shelving from Menards, and I quickly filled it up with serving trays, kitchen appliances, baking jars, and wine glasses.

But there was still SO much under-utilized space, and it left all the food in my kitchen in ONE cabinet! EEK!

Every time I went grocery shopping I shoved food anywhere I could find empty space and had to take out half the cabinet to find what I needed. Definitely NOT working for me!

Even my attempt to organize the spice cabinet wasn't working either. I could never remember which shelf a certain spice was on and kept knocking them all over the place. Time for a makeover!

So first I totally emptied the pantry and cabinets.

With everything laid out, I separated all the food into categories: breakfast, snacks, meal ingredients, and sweets/baking supplies.

Once I saw everything in categories, it was easy to see how I wanted to organize it all in the pantry. I made a list of supplies and headed to the store to pick up what I needed.