New Pantry Makeover

One thing I wish I had in our home is a walk in Pantry. I have extra stuff I need to store that I don't have room for in my kitchen. I had been using the small linen closet, but it is small, on the opposite end of the house (so not easy to access while cooking) and the shelves are spaced very far apart. I constantly had to organize and rearrange to make it work. And when the kids helped put groceries away it got to be a huge mess- in a short amount of time.
Sadly this is the what I ended up with...

 Huge mess!! Not practical! Not working for me!!

We have a larger closet that held spare coats, my bread maker and one end houses the hot water tank. So, wheels began turning and ideas started flying. Hubby was all for it, so the work began. 

 Before

I cleared out the closet, took some measurements and headed to Home Depot! I decided to go easy and bought the Closet Maid shelving system. The top shelf (not pictured) is the full length of the closet 68". It is now the new home to my empty canning jars.

My next set of shelves are 48" long to leave room to access the hot water heater. 

I found those cute baskets to organize my canned goods at the Dollar Tree! The littles helped move stuff from the old pantry to the new one. I will be donating a lot of baby food to our local food pantry.

After

I was able to store my bread maker here, moved in my Kitchenaid Mixer from the kitchen counter (it's under that pretty cover) and my Instant Pot now has a home in there too!!
Hubby installed a hook to hang that mini-step ladder. (Handy for reaching those canning jars!) I had the Sterlite drawers in another area, but they will work here to store potatoes, paper towels and other items.

I ran into Home Depot to grab something for another project and saw those Pantry Packet holders. I picked up 2, I currently have rice mixes in them but I will move them and use these for smaller packets and drink mix packets.
I love that now everything is handy and the new pantry works for our family. It should be easier for the kids to put groceries away and I can quickly see what needs to be added to my grocery list!

This project made such a difference in how our home functions we have begun making over our laundry/mud room to make it more functional and prettier too!! And that old "pantry" will be made-over in the near future to something very useful!!

Thanks for stopping by!!
Until later~

Dollar Store DIY Kitchen Tip

A little something different today. I have been working on organizing our home so I have a simple DIY to share. I put together a couple of lazy Susans for my spices with a couple of Dollar Tree items.

I bought 4 round cake pans and a bag of marbles. So for $5 I know have to lazy Susans!!

Put a few marbles in the bottom pan, then you put the second pan with your spices on top of the marbles.  Spinning the top pan is much easier than sorting through the basket that held my most used spices. I am going to pick up more marbles and pans to make more spinners for my spice cupboard. Who knows, I may even give them a face lift with a coat of paint!

Thanks for stopping buy!
Until later~