Many of you journeyed through our kitchen remodel in the fall via Instagram stories and I FINALLY got to organizing it! After 13 years in our house, we decided it was time to remodel our kitchen for two reasons: more pantry space and more light (it was so dark!). We didn't have the option to add more cabinets or space so we had to get creative. We moved appliances around, bailed on the microwave (those take up so much space!) and focused on function along with all the ways to bring more light into our space (under cabinet lights and light countertops, cabinets and backsplash were key to this!). But back to the pantry . . . we decided to make it more of a "working pantry," meaning, we have all of our appliances in it behind closed doors and even added our countertops inside because we had extra from our slab (but just a tip, if this isn't an option for you, we were going to do butcher block which I think would have been just as pretty). See the closed pantry below. 

We kicked off 2018 with some other changes in our kitchen, specifically, what we are putting in our bodies. My daughter was diagnosed with a gluten and dairy sensitivity at the beginning of 2017, and I came to realize that this past year we have been eating the same ten things over and over again.The biggest problem with those ten meals was they had very little nutrients in them. This happened namely because our "go-to meals" were not an option for us anymore.  And many of our "go-to meals" were from Cara Clark's cookbooks and Dr. Furhman's Eat to Live cookbook, both focusing on high nutrient foods. I knew we had to get high nutrient foods back in our diet and one way we could do it was to have the healthy food visible and accessible.

My great friend, Stephanie, has a serious gift in organization so she helped me navigate this project. Knowing my end goal of healthy eating, she knew clear glass containers would be a good fit for our family. She said when you open the pantry and see the healthy stuff right at eye level (looking pretty!), you tend to reach for it! And I couldn't agree more! The glass containers are from Target and they come in a set of 4 (for $21.99). I didn't us the largest container in the kitchen, but put it to use in my office to organize our crafts. The labels were so easy to apply and are totally custom and available at this Etsy shop! The baskets contain many things I don't use on a day to day basis and those are also all from Target. And in case you are wondering, all of my spices and canned goods are on the other side of the kitchen, next to our stove.

As far as all of our snacks (we love our snacks over here!), they are in three out of the six drawers. The other drawers hold our glass containers, bowls, mixer, baking pans, etc. 

Our bigger bags of snacks go in the big drawers and I keep the unopened bags in one drawer, and the opened in another.

I do feel that we are eating so much healthier now that our pantry has some order in it. Our last pantry was so small that the healthy stuff would get pushed to the back and the not so healthy stuff always found its way to the front. Drawers help this as does shelving that isn't too deep. Another bonus to an organized pantry is I want to keep it clean and since everything has it's own place, it's so much easier to do so! And you know what less time in the kitchen gives you? More time with God! :-) 

A few more pics below . . .