Around The Home: {A Pastel Pantry}

Lately I've been inspired to reorganise just about every aspect of our house, from our CD collection and bookshelves to my makeup stash and wardrobe. This weekend, as I opened our pantry to look for ingredients for dinner I decided: this is it. Operation pantry revamp to commence! This is what we were living with (be warned; it's not pretty!):

How does one even begin to find stock cubes, for example, in this mess? Originally inspired by countless pins, I planned on buying an assortment of storage containers to make some sense of this chaos, but in the end, I decided to make do with what we already have in the house. I'm sure we all have those huge tupperwares that never seem to be used and I even managed to repurpose one of those plastic cutlery trays. But first: time to tackle the clutter.

 

STEP ONE: This is the hard part. I started by unpacking our entire pantry onto our kitchen counters. I found that grouping similar products (baking goods together; rices and pastas together; etc) helps to shorten the process and makes the repacking process much easier! (And remember to check expiry dates and chuck away any old or expired items). This process also helps you to see what you have, and what you need in terms of storage solutions. For example, if you tend to keep a lot of pasta on hand, as I do, you may decide to buy plastic containers to keep your pasta fresh (and pantry looking neat and tidy)!

STEP TWO: Give your pantry a good wipe down before repacking your food and condiments. I recently discovered Earthsap Cleaner and Degreaser, a heavy-duty solvent that miraculously wipes away even the toughest greasy marks and stains. I love that this product uses only natural extracts and have been known to use it on just about everything - including the bath and even to wipe away stubborn stains on walls (and it doesn't damage the paintwork). I used this product to wipe down the walls and shelves in my pantry. Once dry, you can begin repacking your food into your pantry.

STEP THREE: Dig around in your kitchen cupboards to find storage solutions for smaller items. I decided to repurpose a plastic cutlery tray and now use this to store spices, lentils and chickpeas. Make a list of any storage items you still need to purchase. 

STEP FOUR: This step is entirely optional and will depend on the overall state of your pantry cupboard (you'll obviously do this step before repacking your pantry shelves). Our pantry has nasty chipboard shelves, so it comes as no surprise that I was dying to disguise these monstrosities:

After giving each shelf a really good clean, I dug around in the boot of my car and found an assortment of coloured cardboard that I'd used for beauty shoots (you'll be amazed at what unusual items get used in beauty shoots - steel putty, anyone?). I spent the next 20 minutes or so struggling with the cardboard, trying to get them to lay flat on the shelves and sticking them down with sticky tape. I was pleased as punch that I found a use for the washi tape I'd bought at Typo that same day, after my fiance had mumbled something about "spending money unnecessarily". I used the washi tape to add a bit of prettiness to the edges of each shelf. The end result isn't as neat or perfect as I would have liked it, but I think it turned out pretty well given that it's the inside of my pantry!

 

I spent the next 10 minutes repacking and reorganising the pantry - all the baking goods go together on one shelf, all the tinned goods are grouped together next to that, and so on. 

For easy reference, here's the before picture once again:

And here's our newly revamped, uber-organised and oh-so-trendy (pastels are huge this summer, after all!) pantry:

I must admit, I still get a little thrill every time I open our pantry. Now let's hope we manage to keep it so neat and tidy!


Images: Chereen Gibson on iPhone