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I have been saying this little condo is our temporary home for five years now. FIVE.
It is time….to put it on the market. Finally. Guys, we have no room here. It’s time. I need a yard for this beast of a dog I have. I need more storage for the junk we’ve acquired in five years. I just need out. OUTTTTT.
So, January kicks off our “prep for the market” to-do list. We don’t have much to accomplish, but paint needs touch up, floors and carpet need refinishing, and we need to get things organized. I feel like a home looks way more appealing to a buyer when everything is nicely put together and organized, even down to the closets! It helps them visualize themselves living in the space and (I’m hoping?!) may lead to a sale.
One of the small spaces I recently tackled was our pantry. This closet is always a disaster. I am so grateful to have a husband who puts groceries away for me, but anytime he does it he (naturally) just throws things wherever, and then I’m way too lazy to fix it. When I put the groceries away the next week, I put them where I want them to go, but now things are just all over the place and there’s no rhyme or reason as to why it looks like a bomb went off in my pantry. And that is NOT what I want a home buyer seeing when they look at the closet space in my house.
Here is the before picture.
You can tell I *tried* to be organized, but it’s just a giant fail. And clearly I’ve needed to put away that Halloween box for like 3 months now. Anyways.
The after.
I wanted to get rid of all the bags and make the pantry more functional, so I picked up two of the Spectrum Small Scoop Baskets and the Simax 4-piece Cylinder Storage Container Set. I already had some Ball Mason Jars and this Anchor Hocking 4 Piece Canister Set, which I love for storing things like almonds or coconut flakes.
I chose to move things we don’t really use (canned and jarred items) to the top shelf. I moved Landon’s snacks up there as well because a certain someone has figured out how to open the pantry door! I kept all dry ingredients on the middle shelf, front and center, so I can easily find what I’m searching for. I like using clear jars and canisters for storing ingredients because then I can actually see what I have and what I’m running low on. I placed all baking items and “adult” snacks in baskets on the bottom shelf for easy access as well. I hated seeing the snack bags thrown all over the shelves, and I like how the wire baskets make them easy to see.
It doesn’t seem like much, but I feel like using only a few simple items can make a small space look significantly better with just some minor organization! A little more put together, a little less bomb-y.
I’m going to be tackling some other projects for Operation: Sell This Freakin’ Condo, so stay tuned! And be sure to check out WayFair for all of your closet organization needs!
Looking forward to your progress 🙂
Thanks Sylva!
At least you have a pantry! We don’t and X’s snacks are EVERYWHERE. I need to come up with a better arrangement.
And I love the finished look. Hope it helps when you put the house on the market.
Didn’t you say you had small closets?! My friend had a loft apartment with minimal closets and had to become soooo creative with storage! I think those Ikea cubbies were her go-to!
We just sold our much smaller extremely old fashion house last Sept. I was so concerned that it would take forever to sell because of the lack of updates (absolutely none since it was built in 1993). Our realtor sent in a stager who told us her thoughts on what we should do to make it hopefully sell faster. The best piece of advise she gave us was to de-clutter. We packed up everything that we didn’t need at that moment from every room. I packed half the kitchen, bathrooms, clothes, and linens. We packed up and moved book shelves and other non-essential items. We put it all in storage. I re-organized the linen closet once I packed up over half the items in it. This way it looked even bigger and neat and tidy when someone opened it. This was the same with our closets. We downsized all of them and it made them look huge to buyers. Although the house seemed empty to us our friends commented on how much bigger it looked. I kept my most favorite decorating items to add the nice touches around the house.
It all worked though because we had multiple offers after the first open house.
Good luck! It is such a time consuming process especially with a toddler, our little guy turned 1 the day before we put it on the market. But, I truly believe if we hadn’t packed pretty much half of our house prior to putting it on the market it wouldn’t have appealed to so many people.
This was sooooo helpful, THANK YOU! Definitely taking your advice on this! There’s so much we don’t use on a day to day basis anyway, that I don’t see decluttering to be an issue!
Looks really great!
Thanks Sarah!
I love your jars! They looks great! I have a passion for jars! There are many in my kitchen! They look fantastic! Storage Northsheen Ltd.
Thank you!