Cabinet Organization

Timothy and I moved into our humble, sweet apartment on January 1st, 2013. It was (and remains) perfect for our modest newlywed life. But, it took a while to come to terms with the fact that our kitchen was pantry-less. Not pantyless, mind you. PantRy-less.

In a weird way, I've kind of fallen in love with not having a pantry. We are less tempted to buy things we don't need. Pantries invite over-spending and unnecessary storage in an apartment as small as ours. 

That being said, we still lost control of our food cabinet. Hot mess.

So, I sure did take that bull by the horns and fix that little cabinet right up.

Here are a few tips for keeping your little kitchen cabinets nice and clean:

1. Get yourself some shelf liners. Not only do they look nice, they're simply more sanitary and can be easily removed, replaced and prevent stains on shelves that you don't own (ah, renter woes).

2. Save jars and other sturdy containers for easy storage. We have lots of loose items likes K-cups, Crystal Light mixes, tea bags that can go everywhere when not contained. I scored that rockin' tea jar from Goodwill for a buck. From an aesthetic point, rice looks better in a seal tight container than a floppy bag.

3. Go to Dollar Tree right now. The turquoise container in the bottom left is from Dollar tree and is great for keeping snack bags for lunches in one place.

4. Labels are cute and practical. Our printer is out of ink so I wrote mine out. Feel free to find yourself some lovely printables on Pinterest. Labels are a cheap way to say, "I'm awesome and label stuff. I'm more organized than you."

5. Put like with like. Always.

6. Place lesser used items on top shelves. Remember that time we spent $800 dollars on all natural steel cut oats and then we made them ONE time and it took seventeen hours to cook? Yes. That qualifies as lesser used.

7. Don't wanna toss it? Re-gift that mess! We had lots of gifted snacks and treats that we just weren't ever going to eat. Thus, I sent hubby to work with them to give out to co-workers. We gain more storage space and look like totally nice people. :)