Day Two of Out With the Old....In with 2010!

I hope yesterday's post on cleaning out the refrigerator and freezer inspired you to start some projects of your own.  Since I was on a roll, I continued cleaning and organizing by taking care of the pantry next.  Here are the photos you saw yesterday of the pantry before:

Here is the kitchen counter as I was in progress of cleaning off the shelves of everything that had expired or needed to get tossed:

 

Somehow I had accumulated things like 3 bottles of white vinegar, 3 boxes of powdered sugar - the types of ingredients you only need a little bit of when you're making something and when you get to the store you forget that you already have some at home.  I do this all the time even though I am such a diligent list maker!  I have no need for all of this extra food so I TOSSED IT ALL!  Such a good feeling!

I clean out the pantry pretty regularly, but apparently I have missed some things along the way.  The BIG expiration date SURPRISE was when I saw this:

EXPIRES DECEMBER 3, 2005!!!!!

Can you believe it?!?!  Clearly I needed peanut oil at one point and haven't needed it since!  I'd like you to know that not only have I cleaned the pantry every couple of months over the past few years, but I have also moved not once but TWICE since December 2005 which means I have packed up this particular bottle and moved it from one kitchen to another and then again to my current kitchen.  I bet this will amaze my family that something like this could go unnoticed by me!

We have more storage above the pantry which is where I like to keep serving platters, place mats and other things that I don't necessarily use every day.  Here is the storage section above the pantry before:

 

Up here I came across 3 bottles of tonic water that were so old they were FLAT, two French press coffee makers and many bottles of random wine that we've accumulated over time.  Several of these items can be donated including this treasure that I had leftover from a costume party that I found waaaaaay in the back of the cupboard:

I can't imagine I'll use that again anytime soon and I bet someone will love finding it at the local thrift shop.

After tossing the expired stuff and making a pile of kitchen items to donate, here's what the pantry and storage space looked like after:

The baking shelf looked so much more organized and the honey bear was probably so much happier!

I moved some of the appliances that were on the lowest pull-out shelf to the cabinet above the stove where I can still reach them.  This freed up space on the lower shelf for the items I use more often like our panini maker and juicer.

I am loving the feeling of getting off to a FRESH start in 2010!  You should try it too!  Tomorrow I'll let you know how organizing the guest bathroom went.  In the meantime, go into ONE room in your house and fill up ONE bag of stuff to TOSS or DONATE.  It will make you feel like you're off to a great start in 2010 too!