We finally tackled the one space in our home that we'd been ignoring for years......the pantry! It was time for a pantry makeover.
Keep in mind that our home is "vintage"....lol.....circa 1964.....and evidently they ate a heck of a lot less back then! The space is TINY! And it was semi-depressing as well.......and I had to change that.....as I now spend more time in my kitchen with my new healthy lifestyle than I ever have. And depressing just doesn't have room in my life.
So hello paint, hello contact paper......and hello happy containers of organization!
You can see above how tight the space is.....but it is so tidy now! No more bags and boxes and sky high stacked cans just waiting to topple over onto the items sitting directly on the floor! You can see below....the before photo. It was never really a disaster....but just so unwelcoming! I couldn't tell when we were low on items....the space was not well utilized....and it just wasn't easy on my eyes.
Now things are stacked nicely, I can see when I'm running low on items, and its just refreshing when I open the door....which is a LOT!
This was the damage below....LOL! Zadie and I headed out to the local Walmart and purchased clear containers with white lids, white baskets in multiple sizes, shelf stackers, white shelf paper and wooden crates. We wanted a light and airy feel to try and distract from the tiny space.
Matt was complete on board with this project. Ok....I'll be honest, it was 100% his idea!
He measured, cut and applied all new shelf paper.
We chose to cover the existing shelves in new paper vs painting them. With a house full of teens and five grandkids our pantry sees a lot of traffic. Shelf paper will hold up much better over time than paint. You can see below the new paper on the left and the old paint job on the right.
Matt painted inside the pantry the same color that we have running through most of our home....Sherwin Williams Mindful Gray. Its a mid-tone gray that works really well in the light that comes through our windows.
Zadie and I really did enjoy organizing the pantry items into new baskets and clear containers. It just feel really good to be able to see exactly what and how much is in every container! Or maybe we are just both organization geeks.....but here's a quick video clip of our work.
https://youtu.be/Xfch46hzglA
My only regret is not adding a fun wall paper to the pantry walls. But I really felt like Matt might lose his pantry makeover mojo if I said we were going to wall paper that cramped closet!!! LOL! I am thinking seriously though....after several request from readers.....about doing a pantry door make-over!! From boring white to.......any suggestions????
I hope this little project inspires you to look at your pantry space and decide if it needs some love!!! This project investment was less than $200!!
Take a look at some of our other recent home improvement projects - master bath barn door, master bedroom dressing room, my home office wall mural, and our guest bath transformation.
We've done a lot of renovations and makeovers to this house, and we are now starting to feel like we're getting somewhere. The house is looking a lot better, and we're excited to share the full results with you once they're done. One of our readers actually told us that we should really consider telling our insurance company about these changes to our house. Apparently, our home may not be covered by the insurance anymore, especially if these changes have increased the value of our home. That was useful to know, we'll definitely have to look into our home insurance policy once we've completed these renovations. There's more info here for anyone who has recently renovated their home and would like to learn more about informing their insurance company.