Happiness Is The Journey

One of my biggest personal goals is to get my house organised. I get closer every day and am at the point now where our main level is probably about 90% there. The basement is only a part basement for storage and is a scary messy place, that's the final frontier of sorting and I won't broach that subject right now!

Awhile back I was searching our online library system for all the newest books and came across House Works by Cynthia Ewer. When I started reading the book it mentioned Cynthia's website http://organizedhome.com/, which I'd never come across before. There is an amazing resource that is on the website. Downloadable forms! I am a huge addict and advocate of LISTS. I always feel a lot better when I can write down a list of tasks to accomplish, or a to-do list. It gets me out of my head. There is an entire section on the website devoted to these pages - Printable Pages for Your Household Notebook

Yesterday I decided to tackle the pantry. We had a large unused space just past our laundry area by the back door. I asked Matt to build a shelving system back there and it ended up being very deep, which on the one hand means it can store a lot, but on the other hand it's a bit problematic in terms of being able to access everything in it. My plan is to either get some baskets or have him install some kind of pull out shelf or drawer, but for now I'll just have to live with it as is.

I printed out the Pantry Inventory form from OrganizedHome.com and sorted through the entire pantry and wrote down every single thing we have in it. Because of my lack of organisation before there were a few items that had expired or I found too questionable to risk, but thankfully since we have compost bin now most of those things won't go to waste.

Here is my pantry as it is now:

Once we had the pantry to use we decided to get a costco membership. It can make for some expensive shopping trips but ultimately we save money by buying things in bulk. This meant we had to find room for a deep freezer, so we picked up a stacking kit and put the dryer up on top of the washing machine. The deep freezer fits perfectly inbetween the pantry and the washing machine and dryer (and you can see I store the vacuum cleaner beneath the pantry and the ladder behind the freezer).

Here's a closer shot of the pantry contents. Most of the things you see here have a working twin already in the kitchen.

Here's the pantry inventory all filled in. I can admit that I was surprised by some of the things I found hidden in the unsorted pantry. Now I can mark off items as I use them and when it comes to grocery day I can check the list and make sure we're not wasting money by buying another dozen cans of soup!

I've also printed out the freezer inventory for the little freezer over our fridge. It's a big help now that Freya is eating solids, it helps me keep track of how many purees I have and when I'm going to need to make some more. The next step is working on cooking from the pantry and freezer with food we already have to cut back on the grocery bill.

What kind of state is your pantry in?

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