'pretty up' the pantry

The other day I went to the pantry to grab a snack, and just stood there staring. 

It was ugly. And disorganized. And did I say ugly? I was tired of looking at it.

It was TIME to DO something about it.

But there's no money to just go buy a bunch of containers and jars. Nope. 
So I did that thing I DO: I went foraging around the house looking for things to use!

PRETTY things. Things like baskets and trays and containers that would corral items
while bringing some style to the pantry - without spending a CENT.

What I found was baskets. Lord, does my Mom love baskets!

I found an entire wardrobe packing box and two other large moving boxes FULL of baskets out in the garage.

Up on the top of some shelves, I spied the wood harvest baskets

that I used to stage photos of my Sweet Sweater Pumpkins TM over the years 

along with a wood fruit crate.

I grabbed them ALL and got busy....

Here's how it went (which is par for the course on anything relating to this house, I swear...):

I took a 'before' pic of the messy pantry. Then I emptied it, and took another photo.
THAT photo has disappeared. It's just....GONE. 

So the only 'empty' photo I have to show you is from earlier in the building process.

It took two tries to get the pantry the way I wanted it...

I ran out of containers the first time around, so I used the white plastic bins. HATE them.
Went into the guest room, the linen closet, the party supply boxes 
and found a few more baskets holding other things.
Swapped them out for the plastic bins, and was much happier with the result here.

There were items that I consider to be 'messes waiting to happen': molasses, syrup, honey.
To head off a disaster, I searched around for trays that I could put them in...
and I found some metal baking pans that don't get used very often. So I used them!
(why NOT? they are just gonna' sit in the cabinet doing nothing....)

On the top shelf, which has a TON of space, I wanted something really pretty...
So I arranged the crate, two large baskets, a few kitchen pots,
and a funky branch in a wood bowl up there to add some interest.

This isn't one of those high-style pantry photos you see staged to within an inch of its life

on Pinterest, or in a glossy magazine photo.

It's not the result of a bank-balance-breaking shopping trip at The Container Store.

It's just a pantry prettied up by using what was on hand... baskets. crates. baking pans. 

I'm not decanting the pasta into jars with chalkboard labels. 

I'm not covering the cake boxes with paper to match my color scheme.

I'm just opening those doors and smiling my head off 

at the order, organization, and style that I was able to add in about an hour

without spending a single cent.