apackratsearchingforminimalism: Organizing the Freezer & Pantry

Since baby Sara was born, we've starting using a large stand-alone freezer in addition to our regular refrigerator/freezer. Last week after ordering a large amount of groceries, I finally got frustrated enough to organize it. Then this evening, inspired by my freezer organization, I finally organized our balcony pantry.

I didn't take any before pictures of our freezer, but it was certainly a mess. Before turning on the stand-alone freezer, my husband would marvel at my "Tetris" skills as I put away the frozen food in the small freezer section of our refrigerator. Here are the after pictures:

After we got our last groceries, I was feeling overwhelmed and just left a lot of them on the counter and balcony table:

There was room in the balcony pantry, but it was just such a mess that I didn't know where to put things.


Before picture of the balcony pantry

I was feeling really overwhelmed at the sheer volume of it all, and I didn't know where to start. I decided to start with what annoyed me most: for years I'd been wanting to put the aluminum foil closest to the door opening, since I use it more often that the ziplocs. So, I took everything off that shelf and put it on top of the cabinet. (I cleaned the top first - man was it dusty!) Then I put it back with the aluminum foil and plastic wrap closest to the door opening. I threw away the non-zip bags that have been in there for years that we've never used. I have such a hard time throwing things away, but if we've lived here for 4 years and never used them, they needed to go. Also, I realized that I had bought aluminum foil when there was actually another roll in the cabinet. My disorganization led to buying something I already had.

All the aluminum foil/plastic wrap/ziplocs on top of the cabinet.

After picture of the foil/plastic wrap/ziploc shelf.

The next thing that has been annoying me is the disorganization of my Asian sauces. We cook a lot of Asian food from scratch, because most of the Asian restaurants here are expensive and not that great. They used to be on the middle shelf, but since they are one of the things I use most frequently, I decided to move them to the top shelf closest to the door opening. To me, what logically followed was the corn/peas/carrots, spaghetti sauce, beans, and cream of chicken soup.

Top shelf

Since I started nursing, I've been eating cereal as a snack pretty frequently. I never ate cereal much before, so I didn't have a good place to keep it. I've been keeping it on the kitchen counter for months. I decided this evening to find a place for it in the pantry. Since the cabinet is so deep, I combined the section for cereal and formula. After that, I was at a bit of a loss for how to organize the rest. I ended up just making a fruit section and labeled the rest as "various sauces/seasoning." I used the bottom section for overflow. I couldn't believe how much more I was able to fit into the space once it was organized.