So...Maybe It's Not A Pantry {Reveal}

I think I may have been labeling this space incorrectly this whole time!! W shared with me, as I started to fill the space over the weekend, that this wasn't really becoming a pantry, but more like a storage closet.

Although, according to the dictionary, a pantry is: "a room or closet in which food, groceries, and other provisions, or silverware, dishes, etc., are kept." So, whatever, it's a closet with stuff. :)

W installed the shelves once we located an air nail gun {You rock, Olivers!}. Took him a few hours because with each shelf that went in, so did bottom support and top trim to finish it off.

He had to do some creative jimmy-rigging because there wasn't enough room through the doorway to get the shelves in once the other were in place.

Once they were all in, I was all giggles! I decided right then to forgo the extra stenciling on top-- too impatient not to start filling 'er up with goodies!

W even made a little walking stick for E out of the extra support pieces. E also turned it into a hammer at one point, but thankfully on his wooden tool bench.

{yeah, he's a boxer kind of kid.}

Next, came the fun part: trying to figure out what the heck I was going to fill it with. We had our kitchen redone when we moved into our home about 4 years ago...including new cabinets. So, that space is already really functional with some pull out drawers, a lazy Susan, and other helpful features. It just needs to be re-organized. Keeping it real: we got married, moved our stuff in, and haven't spent the time to re-visit how we did it so long ago. 

I decided the split the storage closet into two parts. 1) storing items that are currently in hard to reach places or on the counter taking up clutter-space and 2) my craft supplies because our kitchen table is really where I do it, at least while my kid{s} are so small. 

The top half:

I tried to think both 'pretty' and 'practical' while putting things in. My cook books were split between a really high shelf and stacked on the counter before. The flip jars were also taking up space on our counter. The top two shelves store things that were just hard to reach before and therefore were hap-haphazardly stored. Now, they're a bit on display!

Bottom half:

I'm still working on fill in these shelves. I'm not completely sold out on the storage bins--they were just what we had on hand at the moment. Thinking about spray-painting the milk crate if I keep it. I'm also still moving things in because they were in the nursery/office room before...stuffed into a dresser or in lots of miscellaneous bags. What a chore in and of itself to locate all my stuff!

The milk crate holds fabric scraps, but I'm not liking how I can't see them. There's got to be a better way, right?! The green fabric box contains the randoms: glue guns, sticks, mod-podge, etc while my paint supplies sit to the left and my button jar to the right.

I'm also still working on finding some cute hanger-knobby things for the door to re-hang my Anthro apron, my purse, and his man-bag.

I must admit that this thread container makes me feel so guilty:

I didn't know I've purchased so many. And I have duplicates! I started the jar with three spools from my sewing box and then continued to find more and more while rummaging through my random bags. So embarrassing!!

So...once again, here's the BEFORE:

AFTER...Our new Pantry Storage Closet! Pretty darn close to the plan!

It looks so good and ::gasp:: should I say--a bit girlie too-- which I'm so loving, but not mentioning to W.

My Part is D.O.N.E. {Stenciled Pantry Reveal}

Oh, I can't even tell you how good it feels to be finished with stenciling!! It took exactly 5 days to do this--although, I must admit that the 3 hours I spent the first day was the longest I spent. Each following day, my time commitment {and motivation} got less and less. Not sure I'd have made it if this space was any bigger.

This pantry journey so far has definitely taught me a lot. And most importantly, I actually did the stencil. As my pop would say, "You followed through." :) Yippie!!

Sure, if you look close enough, you will definitely find error. The last three rows are a real sorry excuse for the pattern. My big 36 week belly and my inflexible body made it waaay difficult to get that low. But as W pointed out, it's going to be underneath shelving and all the stuff that we fit in there.

There is space above this shelf that still needs attention. I'm going to try a roller and the stencil for this space, but there isn't as much as a deadline as below since there won't be any addition shelves placed up there.

Now, I get to sit back and relax while W puts in the shelving.

We're all waiting on him now... ;)

Sneak Peek: Progress!!

We all should have projects that we love, but also haven't kidded ourselves into ignoring the fact that the easier way would have been...well, easier, right?! Isn't a project like that suppose to be on the life 'bucket list' or something? You know, life lessons we're all suppose to re-tell to the kiddos?? Well, I'm sure my mom has a good few stories about that. She used to DIY often. ;) Now, I have my own as well... {read about the start here}

This is after one solid, committed day of work {read: max. about 3 hours, collectively}:

{still haven't touched the other two sides yet}

Can't bail out now...in too deep...

Proof I've been hard at work with my little paint brush and cup o' paint! That was before sitting down with some soda, my hubby, and Alias Season 3 for the evening. ;)

  Can I just take a moment to lament textured walls? They are awfully uncooperative in getting straight lines or curves!!

 To keep sane with this insanity of a project, I laid a few ground rules down:

-stop at any time I wanted to

-keep the time spurts short and sweet

-trace stencil by day, paint by night

-never do this during E's nap time since that's also become my nap time...and I'm not giving that up!

-manage expectations: I publicly declared {to W & E} that I would give myself a week's time to finish this project...and I don't think it'll take me nearly that long. It'll be done by the end of the weekend! Yippie!

On Color, Stencil Choices, and Crazy

During the weekend, W proposed a great idea. Well, I should say that W already recommended this idea before I went wild with green samples, but at that time I just didn't want to listen. After my painful tries, I was all ears. He reminded me that we already had some green paint. Our upstairs guest/boys bathroom is a green color but it's a very bright, sea foam-ish green with hints of blue. W also reminded me that it would look entirely different in a darker space. What the heck, why not? 

In our bathroom:

In the pantry:

Of course, this third-try coat was so much nicer than what was in there before. It was softer and looked great! It also helped that we had plenty of it and was our favorite price: free!

With that problem finally solved, it was on to my next... how to get a pattern on to the wall. If you remember, I was leaning toward a Moroccan style pattern from my idea board. Then I read House of Smith's entire pantry redo post and fell in love with her Quatrefoil pattern. Of course, this is so last year in DIY blogland since it's replacement with Chevron, BUT that means many projects and resources are already available to late-comers like me! Woot woot! 

While checking out others' projects, I found a few options:

1) Purchasing a stencil-- the most recent project I saw was AtoZ's foyer. She was given a Royal Design Studio Stencil to try out and review. If only I was so lucky! The stencil is a perfect pattern, but it's $44 and I was worried it would be too big for our small space. Plus, I'm impatient and didn't want to wait for shipping and gathering supplies.

2) Purchasing vinyl-- House of Smith used this method and I found a seller on etsy who was superbly sweet and helpful. It simply goes on like a sticker.

3) Making a stencil on my own-- wanted to avoid this option at all costs as it just sounded like it would take for.ever. Welcome to Heardmont just completed a long closet using this method {and it's beautiful!!} so I knew it was do-able. BUT it took her a collective 10-12 hours to do it all. She's got the luxury of time without little ones, I simply don't.

So which option did I pick?

I went with #3. Sheesh. I was really wanting to try out the vinyl, especially since it seemed like the easiest method. But I just couldn't justify spending $280 in such a small space when we could still really use a new downstairs rug or breast pump or awesome Nikon camera I've had my eye on.

I got my free printable stencil here. Printed it out on card-stock and then cut it out using an X-acto knife. I cut while over a cutting board to avoid ruining any surfaces. Worked out just fine, especially since I already had all these supplies. 

So, since I had already painted the bottom part green, I took the crazy route to getting my stencil on that wall: tracing my stencil with pencil and then hand-painting the whole thing. The exact thing I wanted to avoid because: I don't have time for this! Really, don't try this at home.

Here is my trial run results:

{taken with an iphone at night, no less...}

{This took me about 30 mins}

But, am I excited? Am I loving the results? HECK YES! And surprisingly, it has gone much quicker and painlessly than I thought. I think finding the green caused more of a head ache. Although I will confess that when I was doing the trial run of tracing and then painting, I kept telling myself how ridiculous and extreme this was just to get a stinkin' pattern on a wall who's door will be closed 95% of the time...All in the name of DIY, eh?

Still Waiting On Me

Over the weekend, W and I did some awesomely-massive-long-overdue cleaning. Did I mention it was awesome? Nothing like having dinner guests over to get the ball rolling on tidying up. It was made clear that it's been way too long since we've invited anyone over. But we got a lot done and even had time for some R & R too. Bonus!

After deep-cleaning the fridge with me, W got to work on our pantry shelving! Finally, some positive pantry progress..heh.

First project using his new jig-saw; Father's Day gift!

W went with a sort of 'block C' shape for easier access to stuff in the back. This pantry is actually a coat closet so there isn't not much space to move around in.

I helped him prime and paint the shelves with our leftover trim; Snippet of Tannin. One of our quickest building projects ever.

So, they are totally finished and ready for installation...which leaves the rest of the work up to me.

Perhaps it's all the cleaning motivation that has me even attempting this...

Making my own stencil?!

When people say it's long and tedious, they are absolutely, one hundred percent correct. And I haven't even started the paint part of it yet. It's still too early to tell if I'll give up or see this crazy idea through. You may never see a tutorial for this. :) Let's just say the chevron pattern is looking like a mighty fine alternative right about now....

This week's goals? Head to store for a small foam roller to try this puppy out as well as get supplies for some of the nursery decor projects.

Did I mention our due date now less than a month away? Can we really get these two spaces done in time??

Strike Two

"New Green"...had some potential

At least next to Mr. Neon Frog..

But upon closer inspection with a broader coverage, New Green reminded me of Soccer Goalie Green...

Ugh. I won't even show you the other sample I also tried. So, I then did whatever normal, reasonable, slightly hormonal pregnant lady would do... clean the counters and range-top.

And W took over the closet disaster by pulling out some cardboard and making a shelf sample.

He drew up some spects and then took E to get the supplies. That left me with a two and half hour nap. Just what the doctor ordered for frustrating greens!

Now, the only question remains...do I need to prime the closet before I try another sample?!

Not Green With Envy {Pantry}

We stopped by the paint selection this week and I thought I'd found the perfect pantry color.

"Hidden Meadow"...the second from the top. Thought it was going to be a lighter apple/pear green color. W was actually worried it might be too dark for the unlit space. Well, there's nothing "hidden" or dark  about it, it is literally NEON GREEN. I'm not kidding. I knew there were yellow undertones, but seriously, it looks like a bright tropical tree frog green. And our pantry is fairly dark...there's no lighting around it or in it. The sad thing is I knew exactly when I took the quart from the lady who mixed it. That small little sample dot gave it away and I cringed as I walked over to check out.

Getting home and after putting E down for his nap, I busted it open just to prove what I already knew: complete color fail.

Lessons Learned:

1) I'm not a Color Queen, I've just been lucky up until this point and still have a lot to learn

2) Don't be afraid to get walk out with just a $2 sample...even if that means going back again and again to the store.

On to another green hue family that's a bit more toned down and back to the store to buy some samples. I can't take looking at this highlighter green any longer. :/

Please tell me I'm not the only one who's had poor color luck?!

One Step Closer

We are one step closer to getting that pantry space going!

Over the weekend, we went from this...

{just keepin' it real, folks! heh.}

To this...

{ahhhhh!!}

W still needs to take down the fire extinguisher, the bar and the shelf. But we are ready for some paint action very soon! This closet and its door have taken a real beating over the years. I tried taking off the scratches and marks with a magic eraser {seriously, that thing is magical}, but nothing happened. That means whatever happened, took off some paint too.

Time to find this base coat {I think it's Snippet of Tannin, Kelly Moore} in our garage before anything else can happen. I also vacuumed and sanitize-wiped that sucker clean. Now is the time I decide whether to go for the stencil idea or not. The space is truly the perfect experiment...not too big, not too small. I'd also have to decide on a color too. Oi! Not easy decisions here...

p.s. Our garage sale was a success in more ways than one...more on that tomorrow!

Pantry Plan

 

The Low Down:

1) Stencils! What I've seen of others' stencil projects are just giving me the itch. This part of the plan is honestly far fetched, but would love to pull off if I can convince the hubbs that this is good use of our limited time. Heh. There is a free Moroccan style stencil that can be found here that I'm drooling over. But I'm open to the adventure of wallpaper too just because the space is small enough to tackle!

2) The House of Smith's redid their pantry and used some beautiful stenciling. This is what I'm talking about. Gorg!

3) This pantry is much on scale with that we have to work with. I really like the door hanging organization too. Could be a better solution than what we've got hanging on there already.

4) Jars for containers. Great upcycling!! We have a wee bit of a Mason jar fetish over here. In fact, they are what we use a our everyday glasses. Break one?! No problem! Rinse out a jar of red sauce and you've got yourself a replacement. I also use them around the house as vases and the larger ones from Costco I've already started to collect to hold our dry beans, lentils and rice.

5) This is actually a craft closet, but I threw it in just to get a better idea of how I could mesh the space for some of my craft supplies. I want to have a few things on hand downstairs so I can craft, but will keep most supplies in the Nursery/Office.

6) Love the Ikea baskets on the bottom of this pantry. These would be a great 'catch all' to hide some of my smaller crafty supplies that make their home downstairs.

So, these are just a few of the ideas running through my mind while I attempt to gather a 'game play' for our little space. It may come as a shock, but W is the more clear and effective communicator of the bunch. By having these visual plans, I can tell him what's floating around in my brain. And that makes our jobs go much smoother!