pumped up pantry

I recently tackled our kitchen pantry to satisfy my last organizing urge.  It's been on my mind for a while due to the lovely floral shelf liners and the top shelf that couldn't house our cereal box upright (major pet peeve).

BEFORE                                                                                  AFTER

  

I was so thankful that the liners peeled off easy and didn't require a whole lot of elbow grease.  I was also afraid that they would leave a sticky residue on the shelf underneath but they were very cooperative.  After a thorough wipe down, I touched up the shelves with some white enamel paint and a small sponge roller.  The shelves looked brand new and so much cleaner!

I don't have any pictures of the action, but my handy man husband removed the top shelf and rehung it a few inches higher. The reason?  I like to reserve the top shelf in the pantry for items we don't use all the time, specifically, platters, serving bowls, beverage dispensers, etc. and keep the lower shelves for all our food items.  Well the lower shelves were all the same height and unfortunately couldn't fit a standard size cereal box which, call me OCD, but this drove me crazy.  I would have just stored them side ways but we use an air tight canister so that just wouldn't work.  So Joe moved the highest shelf even higher to accommodate my craziness. You can kind of tell by the picture below which is post shelf upgrade.

After we painted the shelves, it was time to paint the walls.  We chose to use the left over paint from our cabinets, Elephant Skin by Behr.  I felt silly painting the inside of the pantry because it's essentially a closet, who cares right? But the 'after' looks so good and feels so fresh that I will probably be painting every closet in our home now!  I love how the dark gray makes the white shelves POP.  Those straight lines look so clean to me and without the floral shelf liners, the whole space feels very uncluttered.

The next part of the project was so fun...shopping!  I wanted our pantry to feel a little decorated but without compromising on function so I bought a few white basket weaved bins from Target and bright yellow canisters from Hobby Lobby.  The bins hold grouped items like baking supplies, chips, drink mixes/coffee.  The larger canister holds seasoning packets and the small one holds sugar packets.  The wire basket on the bottom shelf is to store all our paper goods and the two brown bins hold M's bibs/bottles and baby food.

Originally I wanted to label all the canisters, bins, and boxes, but decided just canisters as it looked too 'wordy' and cluttered than I liked.  I made these labels myself with some 'pinspiration.'  A How To blog post coming soon:)

We have two lazy susans to keep all of our spices in one place and easy to get to!

I also purchased this mini beverage tub from Target to keep all of our snacks in.  I love to have a big bowl for grab and go type things.

We kept the apron hanger the same but I removed some of my seasonal aprons, I have one for fall, Christmas, Valentines, etc, and stored them with my decorations.  That way, I can unpack them when it's appropriate and they won't clutter the pantry year round.

I have debated whether or not I wanted to add a curtain, like we did in this laundry room, in order to hide all the storage, but for now it's staying open....maybe one day.

The floor of the pantry is free with the exception of  a few liter drink bottles, the Bumbo chair that M uses while we cook, and a recycling bin.  

The pantry feels very functional and looks nice which I love EVERY time I open the door.  This project took a while to get to because I hesitated to pull everything out and make a mess, but once we got started it went fast and the finished product was worth it!