Spring Cleaning Challenge--Progress in a Pantry
9:34:00 PM
Today one of the twins had pinkeye. Luckily we were able to get some drops last night. But if you're a mom with a kiddo in daycare, you know what pinkeye means--that child must be out of school for at least 24 hours after getting the drops. So here I was at home, and I had a choice: I could take it easy with the kiddo, or I could jump start on the Spring Cleaning Challenge. You've seen the "before" images--pretty scary, wasn't it? I hope I haven't bitten off more than I could chew! Anyway, I selected the zone with the least amount of stuff, and one that had to happen before the rest of the kitchen: the second pantry, which is also where I keep a bunch of small appliances.
It's important to break down these big projects into little steps to make it seem more doable. These were the steps that I wanted to accomplish:
- Empty out the whole pantry
- Purge any expired baby formula from the stash of samples the formula companies sent me.
- Purge anything that doesn't belong in this pantry
- Get rid of any appliances we don't use
- Wipe down the walls, door, and shelves
- Organize the remaining items in a way that makes sense
- Absolutely nothing on the floor! That floor needed a good sweeping and mopping.
Let's see how I did with these goals:
- Empty out the whole pantry
Here's a picture of the empty pantry...in order to do this, there wasn't an empty counter in my kitchen!
- Purge any expired baby formula from the stash of samples the formula companies sent me.
Here's a picture of the formula that I had to throw away. I'm sad that it expired, but glad that there wasn't more of it.
Here's a picture of all the formula that I am going to give away. What a blessing that I got all this for free and now I can bless someone else with it!
If you are local to me, and you need some formula, please comment and I will try to hook you up with some. I also have a possible opportunity to get it to some babies overseas that need the formula. Either way, I'm giving it away, since in less than a month, my babies will be making the transition to cow's milk!
- Purge anything that doesn't belong in this pantry.
I got rid of some tins that we don't use and moves some tupperware and pyrex dishes to other places in the kitchen. I also moved the jars so that all my canning supplies are in one cabinet.
- Get rid of any appliances we don't use.
I have a stack of stuff for a future garage sale. The appliances that I added to the stack was a hand mixer that I haven't used since I got a stand mixer and a fondue pot that we've never used.
- Wipe down the walls, door, and shelves.
This is self explanatory. Except that I discovered a scary spider in the corner of the door frame was I started the wipe-down process. Eek. It definitely had some beady iridescent eyes daring me to take it on. I won that little throw down, but I think that my baby thought I was crazy!
- Organize the remaining items in a way that makes sense
Here's the final picture. The top shelve has paper products and small cooking tools that we don't use regularly. The next shelf has the majority of the food stuffs. I corral all the little things into that mesh box. The next two shelves contains mostly appliances, with a few odds and ends. There was enough room on the lower shelf for the H-U-G-E toaster oven that was on the kitchen counter...which makes some progress in the kitchen too! Yay!
- Absolutely nothing on the floor! That floor needed a good sweeping and mopping.
It makes it seem so much cleaner to have the floor space! Here's the before and after one more time:
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| Before |
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| After! |
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