No One Is Timing Us, Right?

It's been hard to focus on our pantry with me working so much these past few weeks. Hubby has been feeling a little under the weather, the poor guy. Despite the schedule difficulties, we managed to paint the first coat of white paint on the shelves last week. Since I had a sick kid on my hands, I painted the second coat alone on Monday while Hubby was at work. I am not a caulker, by any means, so I had to wait for Hubby to feel well enough to caulk all of the shelving. He did one wall on Tuesday and finished the other wall just last night. Now I can finish by cutting the shelf liners to fit and starting to put things back together!

A few weeks ago, I hit IKEA with my sister and Evan to buy my shelf liners. I don't trust much at this store, but these shelf liners are incredible! I also found some wire baskets at TJ Maxx that I finally had time to spray paint. Of course, they went my favorite color from Rustoleum...Lagoon. All of the bits and pieces were ready to go in the pantry, but getting the pantry itself ready took longer than expected. As always!

Taping alone took three hours. With both of us painting, the first coat of white shelves took over three hours. I did the second coat alone in about two (confirmation: Micah hates painting). Caulking took three hours per night for a total of six hours. Everything takes longer when your house is a mess because the pantry is all over the place! I've been a little anxious to get this thing done so this feels like a home again!

Today's plan: touch-up the walls where we got a little carried away with white paint. Then I will measure twice, cut once the shelf liners. Once they're in place, I can start putting things back in the pantry. I hope to have a finished product today! Hubby is leaving for a camping trip with the Scouts this evening, so I can work on it tomorrow, too, if I need.

This has been so fun, but it has dragged out a lot longer than I expected! It will be great to have it done, and I can already imagine how awesome it is going to look with the tan walls, white shelves, perfect shelf liners, green storage containers, and blue wire baskets! A fun, cheerful, clean, NEW pantry! Yippeeeee!

On a side note, I bought forty-eight jars of spaghetti sauce yesterday since we now have the room to store more for a year supply of food. They were on sale for $1.25 a jar, and I simply couldn't resist. Hubby was very encouraging, and I rarely get his support when buying things in bulk! However, I learned a valuable lesson about bulk purchases: don't be the creepy Spaghetti Jar Lady at the grocery store. Next time, I'll buy ten at a time when I'm in the market for a large amount of marinara! You wouldn't believe the awful looks I got as I was filling up my cart. And the conversation was not just a little awkward at the checkout. "Yeah, we'll be through this in a week," said I, jokingly, to my cashier. But he believed me, and then I felt even more creepy. Another lesson learned: when you are the Creepy Spaghetti Jar Lady, don't try to crack jokes with people. You've already been labeled by them as creepy, and failed attempts at humor will only confirm their suspicions.