The Pantry Stash

 

Two years ago (OMG!!!) we were all told to prepare for a two-week quarantine. Get what you need in case you can't leave the house. I did that, and put my non perishable items in these two blue bins.

Who knew I could get groceries delivered, and getting fresh vegetables was the least of my worries. Since then I have occasionally dipped into these two blue bins, and it was a PITA to lift them and move them around. During Christmastime I put everything "junky" into that room, so it really needed a good cleaning. At the same time I have been getting very tired of trying to store and retrieve things from the lazy susan cabinet in the kitchen. AND storing the bowls that grace my table each month was getting problematic.

I decided the best solution was to rearrange the closet into a real live pantry. Of course that meant emptying the closet, clearing the lazy susan and reorganizing one step at a time. Well, you know how it goes - when it's important enough, nothing will stand in your way. It was nice to use my cart to move the canned goods from the lazy susan.

I decided that anything that was going to be stored on the lazy susan had to be something I used regularly, and the I would limit storage here to two items maximum. So even though I love garbanzo beans, only two cans will live here. The rest will go into the pantry. It was great fun to clear this out. I also found a small flashlight which will live on a hook on the inside cabinet door to light it up so I can more easily find what I am looking for.

After a couple of hours the new pantry looked like this, and it was good, but I know the upper kitchen cabinets were overfull, and since I've already fallen off the footstool once while trying to get to stuff up there I knew I needed to clear those out too. So I went to the hardware store and bought four 48" shelves. That gave me an additional fifteen inches of storage per shelf.

So this is what it looks like, and I am thrilled. Yes, I know I have a lot of stuff, but this way I can see it and I know exactly what I have. My son calls my kitchen "the kitchen of endless possibilities," because I can make pretty much anything I want.

The really good thing though, is I know what I have and I can safely reach all of it. I "almost fell" on New Year's Day as I was cleaning up and putting away the Holiday decorations, and I may have cracked a rib. (Remember I have arthritis in all my joints and bad osteoporosis.) So this is also a safer option for me.

This should not have been a surprise. The items in this bin are all past (well past) their "use by" date.

Next up is to clear out and sort the stuff that was in the other side of that closet. It's going to be a process, but it's nice to get a big part of it done.

 

Oh, THIS is fabulous, you'll love it. You Can't Wrap a Baby in an iPad.