The Great Pantry Makeover

The Great Pantry Makeover

Well, well well! I never thought I could love a pantry as much as I do now. Actually, I never thought I would even give the pantry a makeover. After all, it’s just a pantry. But boy oh boy, how life changing this pantry makeover was. Seriously.

Pantry Makeover

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Let me first give props and a BIG thank you to my Dad. He really is a brilliant guy. Now you all know where I get it from. Haha, JUST KIDDING. Sort of. :) Anyway, he helped me a lot with this project and is the mastermind behind the new shelf/carousel design. I will show you them later, and I will also write a separate post just about these shelves. They are that awesome. And if you decide you want some, which I know you will, he is even selling them now and can ship you some! Update: Click HERE to read the post with all of the information about the carousels.

Ok, so here is our pantry before. I love embarrassing myself.

We don’t live like pigs I promise. And no, we didn’t trash the pantry so I could get some good before shots. Sadly, it’s been like this for forever.

So instead of me showing you the afters right away, I’m going to take you on a little journey first of what we did to the pantry. Don’t hate me.

First off, I removed everything. Put all your stuff in boxes and not all over your kitchen counters. That’s what I would have done originally if my Dad didn’t make me get a box. But yes of course he was right.

When the pantry was emptied my dad put up beadboard wallpaper for me. I helped a little by smoothing out the occasional air bubble. :) I already had a roll of it from another project, but I did end up having to buy 1 more roll for $15 so we could finish the top of the pantry. While he was wallpapering, I did touch up our shelves with paint. :)

Sorry, in that last photo the paper was still wet, but that’s the only one I took with the whole pantry wallpapered.

Here is the wallpaper I used and got it from Lowe’s.

Next up came the installation of the amazing shelves/carousels my Dad designed and made. Here is a picture of what they look like.

Don’t let the picture fool you. These beauties are 20 inches in diameter!

I actually did install them, with supervision of course. :) It was very easy though.

I drilled all of the holes first. Here they are after they are installed.

Aren’t those awesome?!?! They aren’t your typical “lazy susans,” trust me. Anything made by my Dad is top notch. They aren’t plastic, won’t bend or wobble, and spin so silently and smoothly. You can put a TON of weight on these and it won’t affect anything. They really are awesome.

Ok, so now what you’ve been waiting for! Here are some pictures of the new pantry.

YES!! Can you believe that’s the same pantry? It’s like total peace going in there now. I know that sounds strange, but everyone operates better when things are neatly organized. I need these shelves in every cabinet in the house now!

I’ll show you some more afters in a second. I just wanted to show you the cuteness I had to add to the pantry first. :) I really LOVED the way Shelley at House of Smith’s organized her pantry makeover. It’s just beautiful and so I used a few of her tips for organizing.

I did get the same big glass canisters from Wal-Mart, and all of the other new glass jars and plastic containers you see are from Ikea. They are all really cheap. About $6 for the big ones at Wal-Mart, and anywhere from $2-6 at Ikea. Then I bought some Cricut vinyl for $9, cut out pieces with those squiggly scissors (sorry, I know they have a real name but I forgot), then used the chalk pens (bought at Michael’s) to write my label with. Sarah at Thrifty Decor Chick also did this with her adorable new jars for all of their cereals!

I really love those tall skinny containers. They are airtight and currently house our cereal, cheez-its and almonds. :)

The pasta and bean canisters…

I didn’t know how I would like having it all seen, but I LOVE it!! Besides it looking pretty, I love knowing how much I have of something now without digging through all of the packages. I always seem to buy a pack of spaghetti when I go shopping, but now I know I won’t need to for a long time. :)

I hung a wreath in the pantry, ummm, just because. :) I had gotten it at a resale shop and wasn’t using it anywhere yet, so I thought this was perfect!

Here are some more after photos!

So what do you think of this makeover? I seriously am in love with the pantry now. The new spinning carousels really provided a LOT of extra room. The top carousel and the bottom carousel hold the taller items like appliances I don’t use every day, 2 liters, dog food, etc. Really awesome. Oh, and hubby organized the canned foods. :) This was really an all around team effort project!

One of my goals was to eliminate as many boxes as possible. I never really thought about it, but they do add a lot of clutter. Of course I couldn’t buy a jar for every single boxed item, so I just put those on the right hand side of the pantry. We don’t eat a lot of boxed foods anyway, so there isn’t much.

Another before just for giggles…

And after…

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So how is your pantry lookin’ these days? I hope you have been inspired to fix it up a bit if it needs it. I promise it really will change your life! And when I went grocery shopping yesterday, I spent $50 less than what I normally would, and it was even my “heavy” shopping day. I really think it was because I knew what we already had.

I wished the beadboard wallpaper was showing up better in my after photos, but it’s the lighting in there. It really looks great in real life. :)

I will be following up with a separate post about the carousels. They are so cool!

UPDATE – Please click HERE to read all about the pantry carousels.

UPDATE: 2/10/14 – I am so sorry but the pantry carousels are no longer available.

Sharing this post at Sarah’s Organize It Party.

xxoo,

Decorchick!

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Original article and pictures take decorchick.com site