Welcome to Day 4 of the Get Your Home Ready For The Holidays Challenge! Monday’s are a very busy around here. My husband typically has off, but he had a meeting in the middle of the day which threw my entire day off. Which also explains why Day 4 is going live this morning as opposed to yesterday night. On top of homeschooling, I had some photos that I needed to shoot and edit for upcoming blog posts. By the time I tackled the tasks of the day I was exhausted. And although it got completed, I simply had no energy to hop online.
So for day four, I focused on my food storage areas which are made up of a very small pantry and a few cupboards. My storage space is very limited. I couldn’t do serious stockpiling even if I wanted to. This also means that these areas get jammed packed very easily if I’m not on top of things. To get started with this task I only needed a trash bag, cleaning product and cleaning cloth.
This was my plan:
- Get rid of items that don’t belong in the pantry.
- Toss out food that is expired.
- Toss out food that is opened, but no one eats.
- Organize the cans in the kitchen cupboards
- Wipe down dirty surfaces before placing items back on the shelves.
Here’s a couple of before photos-
Once I got started, it truly didn’t take me as long as I expected. I got rid of some of old/expired food and organized what was left. I really need to start thinking about some storage bins for my pantry space. I currently have some small bins that I purchased at a dollar store, but I still need to invest in something to hold the pasta, rice and cereal.
Here’s what it looks like now-
Not sure how to tackle this space? Here’s a few tips from one of my previous posts:
1. SCHEDULE
Schedule a time that you know you’ll be able to work on this project without any interruptions. I find that even 15-20 minutes of time can make a huge difference. If it’s a larger project don’t feel the need to do it all in one day. Break it up into multiple days, so you don’t burn out during the process.
2. PURGE
You need to purge ruthlessly. If it’s expired, opened and not eaten, or practically empty, just pitch it. I find that when I don’t think too hard about tossing things out, I make progress a lot faster. I wound filling up a whole bag of trash within minutes when I tackled my pantry. You’ll also need to do this routinely to maintain your pantry in decent shape.
3. ORGANIZE
Once you get rid of what you don’t want, organize what’s left. Figure out what makes sense to you. If your kids are younger and need to access snacks, place those on a lower shelf. If you have things that are alike, group them together. I also recommend using inexpensive storage bins that can be found at the dollar store to contain small snacks and food items.
What areas are you tackling in your home? As always, I’d love to hear from you!
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