My pantry/laundry room makeover

Ever since we moved in here I have been slightly annoyed by the gaping hole in the wall (aka Pantry) that can be found just outside of my kitchen. While I LOVE the space, walking by it and seeing the mess almost makes me twitch! I have considered making a curtain for it but I have a feeling it would have been equally annoying and probably would have been left open most of the time.


The solution? DOORS (duh!) Not sure why it took me a year and a half to decide that we should put doors on this!? I decided a few weeks ago that we NEEDED doors on the pantry so of course we headed straight to Menards. We checked their off the shelf "cheap" stuff which of course would not fit this odd sized hole. So we had them "design" doors to fit it for us. Can't cost that much for 3 doors.... right? WRONG! $150 for 3 very plain, very simple, nothing special about them doors. And that does not include any hardware! Ok, plan C, we make them! So we rounded up the girls who were really enjoying playing in all of the really fancy kitchens and headed to the other side of the store to find some wood. A couple 1x3's, 1 sheet of oak plywood, and approximately $30 later we left.

I am VERY pleased with the way these turned out. I might not have a $25,000 kitchen but at least now when I let someone use our bathroom they don't have to feel like they are going to be attacked by the food in our pantry :)


While we were in building mode we (and by we, I mean I) decided that something needed to be done to the shelf of canned goods. It was a good size for all of the cans except for the fact that I had to empty the shelf every time I needed to get something in the back. Again, I looked for the easy off the shelf option which again was not quite the right size and $60 and decided we could build a pull out shelf (this time when I say we, I really mean Brian). After a little trouble shooting (nothing in this house is square, which makes these DIY projects a little more difficult) we came up with this $20 pull out shelf for all of my canned goods!


This project has proven to me that Brian and I can actually work together on something! We typically both try to do too much and get in each others' way but this time everything went very smoothly. I plan, Brian builds, I finish (paint, etc). Everyone is happy :)

This project actually was started when the girls and I decided to pull down the wall paper in the laundry room (where the pantry is found) one afternoon. I wish I had a before pic but I didn't think of that until it was too late. Anyway, we repainted the room with some leftover paint we had from the house in Lexington and changed the handles on the cupboards above the washer and dryer. Nothing major but it was nice to freshen things up a bit.



Now if I can just talk Brian into building a couple more of those pull out shelves ;)