Organizing our pantry... Finally!

So for a long time our pantry has looked like this:

Very unorganized. Yuck. You may be wondering how I lived with it like that for so long. Well, originally our pantry didn't even open more than a few inches because of the bubble in the tile floor. At that time we kind of threw stuff into it blindly and hoped it landed on a shelf. Then LJ was able to get the door open and then it wouldn't close all the way (again because of the bubble). I probably should have organized it then, but kept putting it off because there were other more urgent projects (you know how it goes, if it's good enough for now then it doesn't get fixed for a while). Well, the tile has been fixed, the kitchen painted, it's past time to tackle this chore.

I started by emptying all our food and dividing it into like categories... and throwing out all the expired stuff (that's what happens when you can't see everything).

To make the pantry just a little more exciting, I ordered this contact paper on amazon. It was only $13 for two roles. 

I love the pattern and the back has a grid which makes cutting nice and easy.

I just measured out what I needed and cut it to size. Then pealed back the first few inches and stuck it in place.

After that, It was easy to just peel back about two inches at a time, smoothing out the contact paper as I went so there aren't any bumps.

Ta-da! One shelf done:

In no time at all, my shelves were not just cute, but clean of all that old house dirt. I really like this contact paper brand, they have some super cute patterns. 

Here is the pantry all put back together. SO much better to have everything organized:

I used about 1.25 rolls of paper. I probably could have done all four shelves on one roll if I had really tried. 

I think this is a nice project if you live in an apartment and can't make any permanent changes. It's a fun little bit of personality that also looks nice and clean.