Thanksgiving Preparations: Fridge and Pantry Finessing

Last week, I took on the semi-daunting task of cleaning out this guy:

He's our double wide fridge/freezer that probably should have a name, like Tina, the mini fridge in our basement that we bought in an attempt to thaw a frozen turkey for Thanksgiving in less than 36 hours a few years ago.  We didn't have such a big refrigerator at the time, and needed the mini fridge to fit our turkey in because our real refrigerator was full of the rest of the holiday trimmings.  The fridge thaw idea didn't work.  We ended up thawing the turkey using water in our sink.  It wasn't a fun experience.  In the end, we were left with a white mini fridge that we still call 'Tina, The Turkey Fridge'.  That was a long way of saying that I think our double wide cooling appliance needs a name.  Any ideas are welcomed!

Here is the fridge side of our refrigerator right after a good scrub down last week.  The picture was also taken immediately after a big grocery shopping trip.  Funny how empty it looks, no?  It is seriously a stockpiler's dream fridge!

It is so organized looking to me.  I actually contemplated making labels for the shelves (ie: cheese drawer, meat drawer, fruit and veggie drawer, condiment shelf).  Actually, if I had more time last week when I was cleaning it out, I would have made labels.  Next time!  

Here is the freezer side:

We NEVER would have been able to fit all of this food in the freezer at our old house.  In fact, we had an extra freezer in our garage at that house so I could take advantage of grocery sales better.  We still have that freezer in our basement, but we only run it over the holidays or when we have company so we can be well prepared hosts!

Moving on to our pantry.  I introduced our pantry in this post in June.  As a refresher, when we bought our house, there were no shelves in the closets/pantry (with the exception of the small nursery closet).  Our pantry looked like this for awhile:

Here was the grocery shopping mess I was dealing with last week (a more recent 'before shot' after our custom pantry install was complete): 

 And here is our pantry all ready for company:

You can read more about the baskets and chalkboard slate labels I made in this post.

Our 'sweet treats' bin is currently full of mini-marshmallow packs from the Halloween clearance section at Target.

I've found it extremely useful to organize our snack foods into a 'closed' and 'open' section.  The rule is that we have to check the open section before diving into the brand new packages.  It works really well for us!

Our bread basket and one of our two baking baskets along with unopened cereal boxes are on the right side of the pantry.

The pantry is so big and organized, I actually have some empty sections!

Our small kitchen appliances are all stored on the top shelf of the pantry for easy access.

Spices are on the far right.

My grocery/shopping list is on a clipboard hanging from a small hook.  We keep a pen attached with a piece of twine.

Here's a list close up...Sam's Club, here I come!:)

Extra canned goods are stored here.

Don't judge me because I currently have 6 extra containers of Parmesan Cheese.  My family loves this stuff, especially on vegetables.  And it was on sale for $3 with a $1 off coupon that doubled = $1/container.  I stocked up:).  My Pam supply used to be equally as impressive.  I still have 2 containers of Pam left.  I can't remember the last time I bought Pam.  Stockpiling is awesome!

Dear Family, 

Please don't tease me about my parmesan cheese stockpile or my cream cheese stockpile when you come to visit this weekend.  I love cheese.  I may live in Minnesota, but I'll always be a cheesehead.

Love, Me

I love my pantry counter top!  Especially because we added a couple outlets that allow our toaster and mixer to live in the pantry.  

We've even contemplated putting a tile backsplash in our pantry.  It's on our 'ideas to research' list, but it's not a super high priority at this time.

I heart my chalkboard label jars!

I recently repainted a step stool for our use in our pantry.  It used to be hunter green.  I repainted it in an aqua blue that I had on hand from another project that I have yet to post about!

The apron on the stool is personalized for Charm.  Lucky has the same apron, and our entire family has matching chef hats for cooking and baking:).

The aprons and hats all hang behind our pantry door for easy access!

I have to take one trip to Sam's Club this week to stockpile on frozen goodies for the big weekend coming up, and then we'll be all set!  Bring on the Turkey!  I'll be back tomorrow and Wednesday with short posts, and then I'm taking the rest of the week off to celebrate Thanksgiving with family.  We are all so excited!!

Linking up to Finding Fabulous.

Linking up to Thrifty Decor Chick.

Linking up to IHeart Organizing.

Pantry Post

Here is what our pantry looked like when we moved into our home early last summer:

Imagination time: I don't actually have a picture of this.  Please picture a 4 foot by 6 foot 'room' that is completely empty and has quarter sized holes in the walls where closet shelving supports used to be. 

The pantry was missing something fairly important.  All of the closets in our house were missing the same thing, actually: closet shelves.  (This post explains a bit more about our 'special' home:).)  The custom made California Closets that were in our house at one point were no longer in place when we moved in.  Remember when I posted here about how our foreclosed home has lots of great built in storage?  Well, it didn't have great storage in the pantry and closets to start.

We made do with a metal shelf and cardboard boxes like this for awhile:

And then after patching and painting the holes in the walls, and installing 2 electrical outlets, we contracted a local closet company to install this last summer:

Blurry pictures, but it's all I have of the brand new shelving.  We designed the shelving to have the most storage possible for the space, while at the same time providing counter top space for the small appliances we'd prefer not to keep on our kitchen counters.  We chose a laminate counter top that very closely mimics our granite in the kitchen.  (The edging is different than our granite, however, and if I had to do it all over again I would have matched the ogee edging that's in our kitchen.)

After 8 months, our new pantry ended up looking like this on most days:

So I spent less than $30 total on these supplies and 2 more glass jars like these:

• Chalkboards from Michael's, full price $2.29, but I used a 25% off entire purchase coupon so it was closer to $1.75 each x 4 = $7
• White Plastic Bins from Walmart Clearance: $1.50 each x 3 = $4.50
• Roll of Chalkboard Adhesive Paper: $3 with coupon from Michael's (used in this post too)
• Glass Jars from Walmart: $6.97 each x 2 = $13.94

I made basket labels using the chalkboards and twine (just like I did for Lucky's closet), and I made more jar labels using the adhesive chalkboard paper.

And now our pantry looks like this:

Metal plant holders (IKEA) and woven coffee basket (Home Goods) were owned already and were pulled from other rooms in the house.

We are all loving the new look and we're doing much, much better to keep things organized!  And now, I have more room to stockpile sale grocery goods!