Friday, December 9, 2011

What a difference a pantry makes

In November (and a little of December) we did a redo on a big area of wasted space in our kitchen. This house, built in 1961, was designed by a family with 12 kids, and there are things that are... weird. Like the fact that there are no original closets in any bedroom except the master - all the rest were built out later. Another weird thing is a pretty small dining room, and a very small "eat in" area in the kitchen.

It's possible that both of these combined could seat 14 people for a meal, but I doubt it. I'm not sure if they ate in shifts, or what! But it was way too small for anything practical for us, and it had a strange built in desk (the space for your legs was taken up by a big air intake vent), and there was a teeny tiny pantry closet. All in all, a very strange set up!

We had built in some shelves behind the stove a couple of years ago to add some storage for dry goods, and I decided in September that the best use of the space was a real "butler's pantry." So that's what we did! The only thing we don't have in it is a sink (and dishwasher) but the kitchen isn't so large that going the whole 6 steps to the sink is a problem!

So here is the before, although it had been cleaned up and our old fridge removed before I thought to take pictures (not to mention they would be very embarrassing!).

Beautiful, huh? See how practical the desk is?

On this wall was the old extra fridge, sticking out 35". You see the teeny tiny pantry?

Our original pantry expansion. This little dorm fridge had been in the teeny tiny pantry for drinks.


And now the "after":


New smaller extra fridge in the enlarged teeny tiny pantry.

A place for everything!

Baking station and cookbooks... LOVE!
Ready to cook!

Better organized, plus instant shredding for the mail.

So that's the new pantry, and I am having a blast! I love that there is room for everything without having things blocking each other or hidden. I love that it looks neat and organized and is soooo easy to keep that way. And I love cooking things like this:

Cinnamon rolls that were so amazing hot that I ate way too many of them...!

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