Organizing with Jillian- New Pantry Edition

There are few things that will still make me actually giddy as an adult, and a freshly organized space turns me into the 7 year old version of myself when I saw a pony at a birthday party. Among the many amazing things Burn Bootcamp has added to my life, it brought my friend Jillian and I together. Jillian owns her own professional organizing company and I have had the honor of having her work on several of our spaces over the years we have known each other.

In our old house she overhauled our teeny tiny pantry and made it into a far more functional space. She took care of a major junk drawer issue in about five minutes, built us an adorable art corner in our old playroom, and helped us move Sophie and Emily into the same room, closet, and dresser before Maggie was born. We could find or categorize almost anything thanks to Jillian’s brilliant thoughts on everything from where certain items to go, to what to print out on the label. With the right bin that lady can transform any space.

From the moment I knew we were moving, I was in Jillian’s ear asking her for help with our new space. Last week she came over and brought two of her sweet kids to play with mine while she worked. Project of the day was our new pantry, which is actually located in our laundry room and not in the kitchen. As we have been living in the house I’ve noticed that when I go to grab something out of the pantry I’m doing it quickly so having a super organized system is a must for this space. Here’s the before picture, and yes its a mess. You can totally judge because I’m judging just looking at it!

The first thing she does is come over to see the space, measure, and talk about what you’d like done with it. Then she goes and buys all the “product” aka the bins that make your junk look beautiful. On organization day she unloads her car with the caveat of “don’t get stressed by all the product I’m about to bring in, I always overbuy to be prepared” and then she makes a giant mess. She takes absolutely everything out of the space she’s working on, goes through each item and decides if it needs to be tossed, repackaged, or relocated.

A big part of our project this time was unpacking a lot of our Costco buys and re-doing bins from the old house. With such a big family we are definitely bulk shoppers but what things come in at the store is not necessarily what they should live in at your house. Jillian unloaded all our canned goods into dedicated bins and even found a bin to store our ginormous bag of rice she always makes fun of us for. She also re-labeled our old bins to repurpose them to work better for our new space.

Once everything was unpacked, she repacked it into a new nicely labelled home while I cleared away all the extra trash. It’s crazy how much space packaging can add to your pantry and just removing something from a box can allow you to fit so much more! What do you think? I keep going in just to admire her work.

One item checked off of our list for Jillian, and plenty more to go. Our whole kitchen needs some help, plus we haven’t even started with closets upstairs, or GASP baby prep. If you are in our area, look her up! Here’s her extremely satisfying instagram page that never disappoints with a before and after picture.

I wish I could say the rest of our weekend was as exciting as getting a newly re-organized pantry, but it was actually just an enjoyable and quiet few days. We checked off a few more home projects including getting a new baby gate installed, a trip to Costco (big surprise!), haircuts for the big girls and myself, and spent some much needed time together.

What does your week ahead look like? Are you a Costco shopper too?