A Better Serving Pantry (Before & After)

We finally have most of the new pantry done! We still have to paint the blonde trim white to match the rest, and we are going to put in a little recycling bin center underneath and install lighting.

Once again, the before:

The after:

It is sooooo much nicer and more user friendly. We painted it a neutral gray color and all of the trim white. We then put in new shelving on brackets which was inexpensive and took under an hour to do.  The wider and deeper shelves make a huge difference in finding things and keeping it organized.

Someone was visiting the other day and mentioned that they had way too much stuff to keep their pantry organized like this. I then showed her that I too had a lot of food items, but you can't really tell because it all is stored in containers. We are keeping the pantry open, with no door or curtain for now, so it was important to me to have it look tidy.

Little jars for things like bread ties

 dollar store metal shelf hangers for small packages like oatmeal and tuna. I take everything out of it's orginal box to save room.

 Snacks, nuts and dried fruit, and baking chocolate go in small, dollar-store plastic containers

 Aprons, doilies, tea towels, and cloth napkins

 Opened bags of chips, rice cakes, and other bagged items are sealed with painters or masking tape and hidden in one big basket.

 Potatoes and onions in bowls

 Love using blue painters tape to seal up opened packages. It comes right off and is reusable

 Plastic store bags kept in a basket on the side. I use a lot of these for many things like small garbage cans and dirty diapers!

Total cost: About $40 which was mostly for the shelving and brackets. We also painted, but we had the paint leftover from the hallway. I already had the storage containers.

 

 

A Pantry Needs Love Too

PATHETIC PANTRY BEFORE

I'm a little ashamed of this sad looking pantry. It really didn't function for us. Our house was built in 1963, and I'm guessing pantries were not a big thing back then, because ours didn't have one. What we do have, though, are a million closets. So we decided to convert a kitchen closet into a pantry.

This is what we had come up with. No one but myself would even go in it because it's dark and unorganized. So we finally made it over and I'll have the pictures up soon of a much more functional, organized (and better looking) pantry.  I really love the newer version!!

I have 3 days of work left next week and I'm off for the summer! I'm beyond excited to have 3 months to focus completely on my family and home.  I'll be blogging way more as well, with a LOT of pictures of healthy recipes, family, and home projects (those are never ending around here lately).

Memorial Day Weekend always screams "first weekend of summer" to me...enjoy yours!



Projects With my Zombie Brain

inspired by Henry's love for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Did you ever feel like a zombie without a working brain? Or do you ever look in the mirror, see yourself, and say, "Well, hello stranger?"

That would be me lately. May is probably one of the busiest months out of the year for me with the school year winding down and a million things to go with that.

Throughout the work week I actually show as much emotion as a rock. I work, come home, make dinner, clean up and get everything ready to do it again the next day. The days run into each other, events all morph into one because I don't have the time to sit and think about how they went.

Then Friday hits and I finally have a little time to sit down and think about my life and all it entailed for that week. It usually makes me a little sad because I realize I've been so busy that I don't remember much of what my boys did or if I even had the time to give my husband a hug.

Pinterest inspired

I know millions of us feel this way. One thing that always bothers me about this overly hectic life is that all of my creativity and passion for things I love to do gets sapped as well.

But, on the weekends nothing is planned, it starts to seep into my body again and I get passion for projects. My new project has been starting a playroom for Henry. I took out some old prints from frames and painted simple watercolors and put them in their place. So fun and Henry loves them!

We are also getting a lot done on our kitchen/livingroom project. I will get a new post up with a lot of finished "after" pictures very soon. I have so many fun projects planned for this summer and in less than 4 weeks we start summer break, so I will be posting a lot more, minus the zombie brain.



Kitchen Floor, Before & After

For those of you who aren't a Facebook friend, here's a quick picture of our gorgeous new floor. I am in love..

Kitchen floor BEFORE:

Kitchen floor during:

Entire kitchen BEFORE painting cabinets and tearing out the peninsula and the wall.

Kitchen AFTER:

We still have a lot left to do, like all the trim, more painting, window blinds and some other fun decorating projects. We also painted the livingroom a beautiful new color that I love. I'll be posting more details on what products we used and more detailed pictures very soon!



More Changes

The wood flooring (the bottom left from the sample above) is going in today! The kitchen is going to look beautiful. I'll be posting pictures later. The best part is that it'll all be done by the time I get home from work today.