pantry organization and cleaning

this past weekend, i cleaned out my kitchen pantry.  it wasn't super cluttered - i went through it not long ago and pulled a bunch of old stuff out and got rid of it.  but, a while ago, i had bought some contact paper to put on the wood shelves to make it easier to clean.  i have been wanting to tackle this project for quite some time.  but i knew it was going to be big. 

this is what it looked like before.

at first i thought i would just clean off the top two shelves and leave the rest for another day, but once i got started i didn't want to/couldn't stop there.  so soon everything that used to be in my pantry was out of my pantry and all over my kitchen.

 it looked like this.

thankfully, i had my kiddos to help.  they were great at taking stuff as i handed it to them and finding a space for it in the kitchen. 

once everything was out of the pantry, i cleaned the shelves.  i used clorox and a rag and wiped them down really well. after i had wiped them all down and let them dry, i started applying the contact paper.  i bought a pretty neutral color.

and i repeated for each shelf

and the little cubby in the corner (this space really needed the contact paper.  my kids use it as a stool to get stuff off of the top shelf)

once all of the contact paper was down, i took an impromptu visit to the dollar store.  they have great organization stuff there.  i bought a bunch of plastic baskets and bins.  then i hit up family dollar for a storage bin with drawers.  i really recommend buying all of this stuff beforehand, but since i didn't know i would be tackling this project all in one day, i wasn't prepared.

once i had returned with my organization tools, i got to work.  the kids helped out here as well.  i would say "hand me all the pasta containers", "hand me all of the school lunch stuff", etc... they made an assembly line and loved it and i loved having there help.  they also took a laundry basket full of food and other items that i deemed non-pantry worthy down to our storage room.  they also had fun "shooting baskets" into our big garbage dumpster of food and things that just needed to be tossed.

at work, we get snacks from costco.  these containers hold peanut butter filled pretzels.  each time the container is empty i snag it and bring it home.  instant pasta and baking mix holders!  they're all the same which i love. right now, i store all of my pastas, my rice and my pancake mix in them.  over time, i will gather more and use them for more mixes.

i used the bin with drawers to organize and store my paper plates, cups and utensils as well as extra ziploc bags.

used some of the stackable bins to sort out my little plastic containers.  i use these for my kids' lunches and they were always a mess before.  still not in love with the set up here, but it's a work in progress.  should have bought more black bins but i seriously thought 9 would be enough!  had to reuse my old orange bin for the lunch boxes and thermos'.

i used the black plastic baskets to organize "like" food items (lunch things, snacks, breakfast stuff, baking supplies, etc...) 

over in the far corner where it is hard to get to, i stored stuff i don't use often but still like to have on hand.  sprinkles, tube frosting, cupcake wrappers, cookie cutters, and cake decorating supplies.

anyway, it took quite a while to get it all put back and there are a few odd items still hanging out on my kitchen counters that i don't want to shove back in there, but i'm still not sure where to put them.

what's next?