Imagine the Impossibilities: Organizing the Pantry and Linen Closet

Last week, I joined a challenged called "Imagine the Impossibilities" to help me organize some closets and get rid of clutter.

I used to be one of those annoyingly organized people.  I would immediately file or throw away things.  As I've gotten older, I started to hold on to more and more stuff.  Either for sentimental reasons or just because I don't take the time to go through my things to purge things I no longer need.  I might have hidden hoarder tendencies, so I took it upon myself to stage a mini-self-intervention to stop the hoarding.

Here's my pantry before:

 I started by taking everything out and wiping down the shelves.

 I had special Easter egg dye that was almost three years old.  It was used to make Pysanki, Eastern Eurepean-style dyed eggs like these:

I also had jars and jars of peaches I had canned five years ago.  This was the first time I had canned anything and we were too scared that we might get botulism eating the peaches.  That was a lot of hard work to end up throwing them away, but it was time.

Here's what my pantry looks like now.

I threw away so much stuff, I actually have empty shelves.

Now, it's much easier to see the food that I have so that I can actually use it and it doesn't go to waste.  Next, I would like to make some cute labels, but this is good enough for now. 

Remember the dreaded linen closet?

Seven large garbage bags of stuff donated or thrown away and here it is now:



Hooray for more empty shelves!

My husband was shocked when we saw me taking pictures of our master bedroom closet to show to the public.  It is always in a state of disaster, but it has gotten especially bad.  I've found that showing you how bad things really are helps to keep me accountable and motivated to get things cleaned.  WARNING: this next picture is not for the faint of heart!

I was able to get the other areas organized, so I know I can tackle this one too!  I'm feeling positive that my self-imposed hoarder intervention will be a success!