The Great Pantry Cleanout

My pantry is tiny and oddly shaped, so it tends to be crammed. It finally bugged me enough to devote an afternoon to a serious cleaning out. Oh my. Lots of outdated stuff, the worst of which was a jar of coffee creamer that expired in 1997. I wasn't even married in 1997, so this jar obviously made many moves with me. And I don't even drink coffee. I filled 2 garbage bags with food items that needed to be tossed. Now my pantry looks nice and neat, and I'll be able to find things again.

The garbage:



I had to take 2 pictures of the inside of the pantry because there's a wall that prevented me from getting far enough away to get the whole thing in one picture. The turquoise baskets are a frugal purchase, bought with the intention of holding my most-used baking supplies. When baking, I can just grab a tote and carry the whole thing to my workspace. Please know that the spray can of Cheez-It is Ruf's. I happen to be a snob who believes that cheese is not meant to come out of a can.






To give our pantry more storage space, Ruf and I bought this wire rack for the door at the Container Store several years ago. Ruf installed it for me, and it has been wonderful! I have an entire shelf with just little plastic bags of spices from Pendery's World of Spices, which is an amazing spice store in Fort Worth. At the top are my many boxes of English Rose Tea from Whittard of Chelsea. I bought only 1 box when we were in London in December. I fell in love with this stuff, so my parents brought me back 6 more boxes when they were there again this past spring. Good stuff!



I'm just so glad that things are cleaned out, organized, and I'll be able to find things again!