Drumroll Please…

My little sister Caroline pointed out to me that my blog post “cliffhanger”  last night was about how I reorganized my pantry. I’m such a dork.

But, I do legitimately get excited about reorganizing my pantry…so really, I think it goes to show how AUTHENTIC I am. Right? Authentic. Pantries. Uh huh…. I digress.  But really, without further ado…here’s what I purchased, four of these little babies:

Yup just four.  Because I’m really not in a position to be dropping cash on pantry organization supplies right now. Luckily, with my $30 gift card I only spent $7 or so! Not bad considering I was lusting after about $400 worth of pantry organization supplies a few months ago at The Container Store.

Once again, the before shot:

Very Messy.

And the after shot:

Not bad for $7, right? Okay…$37 if you want want to be exact. But I was pretty darn happy with the outcome either way! I used the tubs I bought to hold all the boxed meal stuff (mac & cheese, rice pilaf, and the like), Nuts and Berries, Pasta and Rices, and Spreads (Peanut Butter, Nutella, etc.). I had a galvanized steel tub that we use to hold white wine at parties (in the lower right above the trash cans) that usually sits with my party supplies; now it does double duty and holds are snacks, too.

I used some metal mixing bowls I already have that I rarely use to hold root veggies and breads. And I used cake pans (1 square and 2 round) to hold other spices and sauces I rarely use on the highest and lowest shelves.  Now they’re actually serving a purpose when they’re not in use…not just collecting dust!

I also really wanted to make two levels of cans on that shelf. So I scrounged around our house and settled on leftover tiles we had sitting on a shelf in the garage.  I just stacked them until they were high enough for me to see both levels!

And then I moved my cookbooks from the top shelf of my pantry, which was always an awkward place for them to live, to another place in my kitchen, and moved some appliances right on in. Lastly, I made some labels on my handy dandy label maker!

I’m so happy with how it all turned out!

But perhaps the funniest thing I found, was this can of soup:

For the most part, everything that was I took out of the pantry went back in…but I did call into question a few things. Like this soup. To my knowledge, we have never eaten this flavor of soup in our house. So I questioned whether or not to toss it. I decided to check for an expiration date to help me with my decision making.  I found one: June 17, 2006. Yup. It’s been expired for four years. The best part? That’s right around the time I moved in with my hubby. And we’ve moved twice since that date! This soup has been living with my hubby longer than I have. How romantic! Needless to say, it’s now in the garbage. Sorry, Chunky.

And there you have it. Just another day for This American Wife.