Ok. I feel like I need to make excuses and be defensive about my pantry for a minute.
First of all, yes, the picture above is my pantry. This is what my pantry looked like the day after my daughter’s Rainbow Party just a few weeks ago.
I’m not proud.
I have an awesome pantry, which was a requirement when we built our house five years ago. In fact, we even made it bigger than the plans originally called for because it wasn’t quite big enough for me. Truth be told, I still wish it was a bit bigger.
So, when we built the house, we just added evenly spaced, immovable white hardwood shelving. It looked nice and clean, and given the pantry from our previous house, this was like the Taj Mahal of pantries and I couldn’t imagine ever improving upon it. Then, five years happened. Two little kids happened. Birthday parties, entertaining, and Lemon Sugar happened.
Now, generally speaking my pantry was NEVER really as bad as the photos I took for this “before” session. Like I said, this was the aftermath of a pretty big birthday party and a pretty busy month of baking and entertaining.
But still. Copious amounts of shame here folks.
It gets worse.
I’m literally cringing at the thought of putting this out there for ya’ll to see.
So. Painful.
Clearly, it was time to make some changes and get things organized again, so I began researching. I wanted to find the perfect pantry organization system that would meet my needs, organize my Lemon Sugar life and my daily life, and for Pete’s sake, clean up this mess.
I looked everywhere, and I weighed the pros and cons of every system out there, including a DIY renovation. Once I stumbled upon Organized Living’s Freedom Rail system, I was in love. A couple of phone calls later, I had a design that met my every need, looked great and was so easy to install that we did it ourselves in just a couple of hours.
It took longer to take everything out of my pantry than it did to install the new system. Seriously, this is an awesome product.
As you can see by gawking at my pantry-disaster (seriously, I feel like I’m naked here…) I didn’t really have a system at all. I tried to keep spices together, pasta together, baking ingredients together, etc., but it didn’t really have that “a-place-for-everything-and-everything-in-its-place” feeling, which is really what I need in my life to keep me sane.
That’s the great thing about Freedom Rail by Organized Living. They literally have a component for every possible organizational scenario. The shelving is adjustable, they have bins, pull-out drawers, adjustable baskets, stand-alone wire baskets…the list goes on.
I really can’t wait to show you my new spice rack. It’s fantastic.
Before we could get started, we obviously had to remove every single thing from the pantry, which was a great opportunity to get rid of ingredients that we no longer use (we’ve gone mostly organic over the last year or so) and provided a chance to re-think how I’ve been doing things and organizing my kitchen life.
Then, we began demolition, which was relatively painless. It was a bit noisy, but the old shelving came down pretty easily. A bit of floor repair and a couple of drywall patches later, we were ready for a fresh coat of paint (more about that later) and it was time to get the new shelving up on the walls.
To celebrate and share the love a little bit, Organized Living has offered to provide a $100 gift card for one lucky Lemon Sugar reader. They are seriously awesome people over there, and $100 would be a great start to a new pantry system, garage system (plus they have 25% off this month!) and I promise, cross-my-heart that you’ll love their products. Check out their inspiration gallery and product line – they can literally organize any room in your house, from mudroom to laundryroom to pantry to closets.
Be sure you take some time to enter the giveaway below, and if you have a minute, watch the video below to learn more about what Organized Living can do for you. Don’t forget check back next Monday (6.24.13) to see the after pictures and to see who won the gift card!
A huge thank you to Organized Living for their tremendous support of Lemon Sugar, their amazing products and their help along the way. Good luck!
♥erin
The beverage can dispenser would be my first purchase with the gift card and I would do three of them for all three of the drinks the teens take for lunch. The boxes take up so much room.
Garage organization for sure!
I would definitely pick up some kitchen items, including the beverage can dispensers. But then I would have to look at the Classica line to completely redo my bedroom closet!
Ohhhh, I would get a mesh bag to use in the car and baskets for the kitchen!
I think the rail-o-box shoe cubbies could change my life…
It would be nice to see a different way of organization in my home!!
I love the Classica series of products!
Excited to see these products!
Looks AWESOME!!!!
I would probably start with some of the single & double kitchen shelves … to better organize my cabinets!
Geez, any product would be a welcome addition to my messy kitchen! Thanks!!
Anything from the garage system….My garage aa mancave is like a black hole.
My basement is in need of some serious organization!! So anything that could help with that mess would be great!!
Organized Living Kitchen or Freedom Rail is where I would start!
Oh heavens….if you consider your “before” awful I can’t even imagine what you would think of my “pantry”…..definitely need help organizing….because in my pantry spices are wherever there was room to stuff them and I shudder to think after 10 years in this house what might be in the back of that cupboard, lol.
I would use it for the kitchen lid organizer as my lids are always in the way and this would be a nice way to keep in one area.
My garage could definitely use some organizational help!
Cool contest!
I would totally pick some of the garage organization items!
organize my hall closet for sure.
Every room in my teeny tiny house needs some organization, would love to win!
My closet needs organized in the worst way!
I have no storage in our old farmhouse…we have a baby coming in December and have no idea where we will put anything…would love to win!
I would so love to win the closet make over credit! I can’t wait to see your final makeover pics.
Kitchen storage!!! All those great bi-level shelves would totally help my cabinets!
I have no storage in my kitchen…this would e great
I would love to have the laundry room organization!
I would organize my pantry. It’s just crammed full and stuff stashed just wherever we can get it. It really does make me crazy when I have to put groceries up. It’s a complete chaotic mess in there. I hope I win!!!
This would be so awesome! I try to stay organized, but help is always welcome 🙂
The Over the Door Pantry Solution sounds great! Thanks for the giveaway.