I have a confession to make.  At heart, I’m a total slob.

Occasionally I’ll get my act together and tackle an organization project, like a closet or my office.  But then downward spiral into utter chaos begins – a stack of papers here, wrapping paper shoved into a corner there.  Faster than you can say “hoarder“, my ode to organization becomes just another pile of junk.

Take my pantry, for instance.  It’s of modest size since it used to house our water heater (read about that here), but fine for just two people.

The problem is that it’s so darn deep.  Small children could be lost in there and I would have absolutely no idea.

Anyhoo, our pantry used to be organized.  Items were sorted by type and amount of use, you know the drill.  And then the other day I reached into the pantry for some pasta and was confronted by this:

and this:

No bueno.

So, yesterday Jason and I finally got up the nerve to tackle our disaster of a pantry. First we cleared out everything (i.e., 4 thousand cans, 2 million boxes, and a partridge in a pear tree) and piled it all up on the island so we could get a good look at what we were working with:

It kind of boggled my mind how much stuff we had in there. I think I spotted a gnome at one point.

It’s a good thing we cleared everything out because I’m pretty sure it was becoming a biohazard. Ick to the max.

I attacked all the shelves with Clorox Anywhere Spray and then we got a good gander at how much space we had to work with:

And then we checked out all of our junk on the counter again and came up with a plan of attack that involved containers for things like rice, flour, sugar and all that good stuff, and then whatever else I happened to find at Bed Bath & Beyond while Jason went to Spanish class.

Smart people take measurements before they head off to BB&B for storage stuff – not me, no sir. I apparently enjoy the mystery and anxiety of “will it fit??” In the end, unburdened by pesky things like proper measurements, I made my way home with about 10 containers, 2 double decker storage thingies, can bleachers and a wire thing you can hang on the wall.

Then I started stuffing loose items into containers, making makeshift labels as I went along (I plan on making proper labels sometime today). Then Jason came home from Spanish class and we chatted about how we wanted to organize everything. We decided to forego the can bleachers and wire wall-hangy thing, but we used everything else.

Before I break it all down for you, here’s how our pantry looked after our organization fest:

Better, right? Like maybe civilized people live there?

Here’s a shelf-by-shelf rundown for you organization aficionados:

I’m much happier with our pantry now, and even Jason is marveling over being able to open the pantry doors and actually find something.  It’s like an after-Christmas-miracle.

Please tell me I’m not the only one with a horrifying pantry. And I’m sure there are a few of you out there with pristine pantries – what’s your secret?