My Pantry Project

We are getting ready to celebrate our one year anniversary of living in this house…our first house!  The house is now “lived in” and we have a routine and a comfort level here.  Two of my favorite things about this house are my open kitchen (I love to cook and bake) and my pantry!

My pantry is pretty great…..if you look at its size, shelving, etc. If you look at the clutter and disorganization….well, that is another story.  I started off strong.  Things were organized and each shelf had a purpose.  A year later and much of that is over…
I am dying to put some cool screen doors on my pantry (check out the inspiration pics on my Old Doors Pinterest board), but I couldn’t do that with the way it looked in there!  So, I decided to tackle the beast this week.
Here are the honest BEFORE pictures:

The tools for organization are there….lots of shelving, hanging racks for cleaning supplies, and plenty of space.  I just needed a few bins and buckets and canisters to get it all together, so I ran to Dollar Tree and picked up a bunch of wire racks and storage containers in coordinating colors.  Then, I proceeded to empty the pantry……WOW, there was a lot of stuff in there!
This is where the project went awry!  After emptying the space, I was able to really see the space.  It was badly in need of a paint job!  At first, I thought I’d just paint around the shelving, but why do a job half-way?  It was too late to turn back!  So, I painted the side walls the same color as my kitchen (a pretty gray blue called Cumberland Fog from Behr).  Then, I stared at that big wall in the center.  Like most DIYers/Bloggers, I took a break and went online for a little inspiration.
I remembered that I had loved the pantry makeover that Domestic Imperfection posted on her blog…she stenciled the entire back wall!
I wasn’t about to tackle a big stencil project, but I had an idea: wallpaper!  Why not?  How hard can that be for a first-timer?  After all, I had seen my parents do it in the 90’s……
If you’ve ever wallpapered, you can imagine what I went through (by myself).  Now that it is done, I love it (but I’ll probably never wallpaper again).I got caught-up in the excitement of the project and took down all of the shelves thinking I could just put them back where they came from…brilliant, right? WRONG! (FYI, the drywall will not support your brackets again when attempting to use the same holes…..I knew this, but still tried it anyway.)  I didn’t want to put a bunch of extra holes in my pretty, new wallpaper, but alas, there were a few.  Oh, well.After the shelves were (finally) up, I set about organizing the items that needed to go in there.  There are now bins for my son’s school lunch snacks and breakfast stuff.  My baking supplies are all together and all of the pastas have their own new canisters.

So here it is now:



Still have a few things to organize, but overall, I am happy with it.  I love the “finished” look that the wallpaper gives and I can see everything that I have in there.
BTW, I received a Silhouette Cameo for my birthday (so excited!!).  As soon as it arrives, I am going to make some cute labels for my bins and canisters. And, I am on the search for doors (which I may have to make myself….another project!).
Happy Organizing!




This post is linked to: 
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