Earlier this week, I shared my pantry makeover and the huge difference it has made in how our kitchen feels and functions. Today, I wanted to share a few more things that have really helped to clean and organize this space. At the end of this post I’ll also share WHY it’s important that I figured out better ways to store things in this particular room.. which is some really fun news!

Spice Racks and Containers.

All of our spices used to be housed in the door of our pantry. Then, last year I finally invested in a spice rack and some jars and turned one of the drawers in our kitchen into a spice drawer. Well, half of a spice drawer, lol. I didn’t order enough spice jars and so for a whole year that drawer was half empty and there were small spices still strewn about our pantry wreaking havoc (visually). I know – silly. So, when I was organizing the pantry last week I finally ordered more 4oz spice jars to fill the drawer and then some larger 9oz jars for the larger spices that we usually purchase. The result? These two lovely displays:

Here are the exact links for our spice racks and containers:

Water Bottle Organizer.

This may seem like kind of a silly thing to get excited about, but it freed up so much space in our kitchen cabinet! It comfortably holds six water bottles, which is plenty for my husband and I so we picked our six favorites, donated the rest and now have a pretty spot in our pantry to pull from. For what it’s worth, I also love how it made us evaluate what we already had and reminded us to get rid of the excess!

Leftover Container Lids.

I wish I had taken a ‘before’ picture of this drawer before I organized it, but you can probably imagine. Containers themselves – some with the lids on, some with the lids off. Lids in corners, stacked, strewn about. And containers laying in the drawer with no rhyme, reason of SEMBLANCE of organization. I mean, seriously.. it was bad. I dreaded putting leftovers away at night because it meant braving this drawer y’all.. I’m serious! But it’s AMAZING how one little lid organizer made SUCH A BIG DIFFERENCE. With all the lids of the same sizes securely in one place it left the opportunity to organize the containers by size, shape, etc. Everything is SO much easier to find now.. and so much prettier!

Bread Box.

I found the perfect bread box for the empty space next to our appliances. Usually, we have two different breads (whole wheat for the boys and sourdough for us) on hand and then a pack of bagels. This bread box holds all of those perfectly and I love the way it looks! It’s also pretty enough to place on your kitchen counter if you need/want to!

Turntables.

I touched on these in my pantry makeover post, but I love them so much I think they’re worth another mention here. These babies are AMAZING as far as kitchen organization goes. We have one under our sink (seen in this post) and FOUR of them in our pantry. They just make items that would normally be lost in a line on a shelf soo much easier to find and access. With a simple turn of the finger you can see several items, rather than having to pick up, put down and search for what you need. We have a few different kinds in our kitchen and each are perfect in their own way.

Foil and Ziplock Organizer.

I think I saved the best for last. This thing is a little pricey but it’s SO COOL. I’ve seen a few variations of these organizers, but I loved this one because it kept everything in ONE contained piece. So we have our foil, plastic wrap, snack baggies, sandwich wraps and quart size baggies all organized neatly in one drawer. These items used to take up one whole shelf on the back of our pantry door and this drawer used to just be a junk drawer! I LOVE not having anything on our pantry door anymore and I LOVE having one less junk drawer (we still have two but I’m working on it, LOL)!

The Fun News.

So… why the need for an overhaul for organization and space saving?

Well, I needed to free up as much space as possible and find homes for things in our existing upper cabinets because we are getting ready to do a small(ish) kitchen reno!! I’ll put all my plans and details in a blog post in the next few days, but to give you an idea.. We’ll be ripping out our upper cabinets, redoing the backsplash (and taking it all the way up to the ceiling), adding more open shelving, redoing floors, making arched doorways and POSSIBLY creating new shaker cabinet door faces!! I can’t wait!

I have been SO inspired lately in terms of home projects ever since we decided to give up our home search recently. There are so many ideas floating around in my head for room refreshes and total makeovers – so stay tuned!! First up is the kitchen so let’s do this!