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With the official
start to Spring, I hope each of you are feeling some vim to lighten up and
clean out stagnant parts of your home.
Though spring weather has not arrived in our
part of the world, as a family we spent spring break on the west coast of
Canada, surrounded by sea and spring blossoms, it was hard coming home to a few feet
of snow and ice-icicles hanging from our eves yet a week of west-coast spring did infuse
beauty and eagerness for this next season in my heart and home.
This week I cleaned
and brightened up our school room, to help give a fresh start to our last term
in school, Roger brought home daffodils to cheer up the school room which helps
me look forward to heading back to school and teaching, we have ten weeks of
planned schooling left, which is exactly how many weeks until my wee one is due
to be born!
Spring has a way with
me, getting me focused to wrap up the projects of winter, like school, pregnancy
and extra house work, so as to give way to the few months of beautiful drawn out
summer days.
And for a little show
of my own 'spring' in my home my recently updated, cleaned out, organized
pantry!
I have a closet pantry, it is a lovely addition
to my kitchen. Because it is on the smaller side I need to use this space
intently and keep it organized or else it will not work for my size family!
I do have extra
shelves in our basement to hold the bulk of our food that we purchase in large
quantities. I employ my Mothers pantry organization method. I store all the
bulk foods down stairs and refill jars on the main floor as needed, this also
works for canned goods, I just keep a can/jar or two upstairs and restocking
the pantry shelves as needed. The light, bright organized and functional pantry
this has become is truly a time saver and blessing to me and my busy household.
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On the door of the
pantry I have wire shelving, this holds all the quart size canning jars, in the
jars I have dry goods that are least used in my kitchen. On the bottom shelf I
have our families water bottles which is the only 'cups' we use during the day
(saves time and dishes) it is at kid level and each child can hydrate as
needed.
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I will explain each
shelf of the pantry from top to bottom.
The top shelf is host
to the treats! Candy, cookies, wine...
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Second to top shelf
is the snacks. One bin has the chips and crackers. The other bin has the
snacks, we mostly use these for food in the car, granola bars, fruit purees,
all other 'snackies'. I also keep my vintage cookie tin on this shelf, I will
store any home backed cookies or muffins that I have made for the week.
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Third shelf, stores
my largest jars, they are gallon size pickle jars. In these I store the dry
goods we use most frequently. Rice, sugar, oats, flour and my pregnancy tea. On
this shelf I have a basket for my special foods.
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Next shelf down has
two-gallon jars, there are fourteen jars, two lines of seven jars each. Each
jar has more dried goods, nuts, noodles, and all the in-betweens.
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Last shelf, has the
canned goods, the oils, my protein and any bottles.
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On the floor of the
pantry I have three baskets, one for cereal, another for root vegetables, and
another for fruits.
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This is my pantry!
The most important
things for me is that all my food is visible and accessible.
Here is the list of
where I bought my pantry organization supplies.
Large white baskets
are from IKEA
Black wire baskets
are bought at Winners
Large pickle jars have
been collected from thrift shops.
Two-liter jars (Bernard
Brand) are from Canadian Tire
One-liter jars (Bernard
Brand) from Canadian Tire
White canning jar
lids (Bernard Brand) Canadian Tire
Chalk labels and
Green Labels (both Martha Stewart Brand) are purchased from Staples
The little chalk
labels I have hanging on the white baskets these were purchased at Michaels.
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