A Piece Of Pantry Peace

It was a fun evening the other night when John and I convened in the laundry room to discuss the future of our pantry. I know I shouldn't complain too much, especially since several people don't even have a pantry. But mine? The one I do have? It's awful. First of all, they must have let small children assemble the shelves. Old closet shelving was used and doesn't even fit properly. In addition, the closet rod triangles were recylced from another life to make an appearance here, which only robs me of valuable real estate in my microscopic pantry. I always want to do better at keeping a home, and having a properly-stocked pantry is a big part of that.

Soooo....I stepped off a new walk-in pantry for John to see. Our laundry room, which houses the in-wall pantry as of now, is big enough to spare the room for a larger pantry! He agreed that it is something we could have hired out...only one wall would need to be framed and drywalled, then proper shelving installed all the way around.

While I have John on board for a Pantry Makeover, he did bring up a good point. At present time, would I rather have more room for Macaroni and Cheese? Or a place for guests to sit when they come visit our home? He wins for now! Thus, I will patiently wait to get my new pantry until we have all of the necessary furniture to make this place inhabitable! Maybe next year? I bet it would only be about $500 from start to finish, and lots of construction guys are out of business right now. It would quadruple my storage space for food...I get shivers just thinking about it! For now, I will buy couches and wait for a larger, more user-friendly pantry.

To make it livable in the meantime, I used my improving health to re-organize the pantry this morning.

Some of the shelves are sticky, despite me scrubbing them when we moved in. I therefore decided to mask the problem by covering them with the remaining shelf liners I had leftover from the kitchen drawers. I am not an IKEA fan and couldn't be paid enough to purchase real furniture there. They do have handy solutions for storage areas, and I used their shelf liners to make this pantry purty. I actually really like the contrasting gray and tan paint! After the liners were cut and installed, it was time to organize and put things back in place. I left room for more things to come, since my main goal for re-organizing the pantry was to take inventory of what we needed to purchase. I love how everything now has a place and is easily accessible. I had accidentally placed rarely-used items in front and frequently-used items way in back when we first moved in. After cursing such an arrangement for six months, I remedied it today. I feel so much better inside! And so does my pantry!

This will have to work until I get the dream pantry built in a few years. At least I am now cognisant of the fact that I own way too many cans of Chef Boyardee!