My Atrocious Pantry: Before and After

I have a fairly large kitchen. I have an L-shaped counter, a refrigerator opposite the L, a peninsula, and a dining area. Yet somehow, I never have enough counter space or cabinet space. As such, most of my food has migrated into the cheap freestanding cupboard we put next to the fridge, and my dishes (and mixing bowls, and waffle iron, and fish-shaped ice cube trays) have taken over the real cabinets. I realized, while trying to decide what to have for lunch that my "pantry" was a little disorganized.

  

Yeah. Maybe a little more than a little.
 
Since I still didn’t know what I wanted for lunch, I decided to reorganize! I started by taking everything out of the cupboard.
 

I don’t trust the cleanliness of my own kitchen floor, so I chose to spread everything out on a picnic blanket. Then I reorganized. I started with all my baking supplies.

 
That’s a little better, right? My pastry tips and cupcake pan liners are now shaking up with the cookie cutters and I threw out that disgusting bottle of balsamic vinegar. Turns out my molasses was expired too.

On the second shelf we have ingredients.

 
I may have an unhealthy relationship with tomato sauce. No, you don’ t need glasses, you really are looking at nine jars of tomatoey goodness. Believe it or not, this isn’t even an overabundance around here! Almost an entire jar goes into stuffed shells, we use at least a jar and a half when we make lasagna, and a week without spaghetti is like a week without air, so these will be used up quicker than you’d think.

On the third shelf we have canned goods and junk food.

 
I don’t know when I bought pineapple, but it’s now front-and-center so I (hopefully) remember to eat it.

Ready for the big picture? Here we go:

 
Much better!

Just so you don’t think I’m cheating or anything (like those super-fancy closet makeovers where they show you a jumbled closet and then a new closet with, like, four shirts in it) I threw out a few things that were expired, put the honey mustard in the fridge with the rest of the condiments, and moved the tea and drink mixes to their proper home on the counter with all their friends.

Your turn! What does your pantry look like? Do you need to reorganize too?