Our Functional Pantry Make-Over

Our pantry make-over reveal! Plus my can't live without them pantry organizing tools.

So, this is not a fancy make-over reveal post. No fun, bright, amazing paint colors. No fun curtains, rugs, accessories.

But.

If you love the pleasure of a good organizational before and after, you may just like this one.

I'm so very excited about it!

Before we delve into pantry make-over, I have to first show you some pictures of this weird part of my kitchen. (Please excuse the iPhone photos; I had not originally intended to blog this!). The fridge was pushed back into what was clearly the original 'pantry', and there was some sort of wannabe break-fast buffet thingy against the wall. Only you couldn't sit at it because it was too shallow.

We did not have nearly enough storage in our kitchen, and whenever I needed a can of diced tomatoes, I had to run down the stairs to our 'pantry' in the laundry room.

Finally, we decided to do something about it!

Since we don't always move at lightning speed around here, this is how we lived for a little while. Then Ben puttied the holes in the pantry and a fresh coat of white paint was applied.

Finally, shelves! Ben put molding along the back and side walls, so the back shelves can support lots of weight. He used brackets from Ikea for the side shelves since there is no wall to anchor them to, so these shelves can't support quite as much weight.

Then I went crazy and put everything in my brand-new pantry 😀

But it looked like a crazy, disorganized mess. So I got a few organizational tools:

Maybe not the most amazing before/after photos in the world. But, since we don't have a door yet for this wonderful amazing super fantastic pantry, I get to look right into it, and I love seeing it a bit more organized.

Here's how it happened:

Baskets from Ikea {similar here}

Hanging baskets {The Container Store}

3-tiered shelf organizer {The Container Store}

Vertical shelf organizer {Bed Bath & Beyond}

Soda can dispenser {Bed Bath & Beyond}

Plastic bins {Ikea}

Clear jars {Ikea}

Luckily most of these guys were living elsewhere in my kitchen so I didn't have to run out and spend a bunch of money. And now I don't have to run so many stairs! Yipee!

However, the rest of my kitchen is still in a bit of a state. We are building Ikea cabinets around the fridge (to match the rest of the kitchen). Updates to be posted soon 🙂