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Pantry Finishing Touches

Let’s finish this pantry, shall we?!  Well…kind of.  The pantry is signed, sealed, delivered done, fully organized, and functional.  But after going through all the photos and photo editing and whatnot, I was left with 30+ pics of “finishing and organizing the pantry”.  Uh…long blog post say what?!  And since I value sleep these days (seriously…can’t get enough of it) and don’t want to be up all night blogging, I’m breaking the post up into two parts.  Today, we’re talking about the finishing touches (a little painting and a little hardware…nice little pantry post), and tomorrow we’re talking about organizing it!  But I couldn’t resist a full monty shot of the before and after of the whole pantry project:

So…much…better!  The haphazard collection of mismatched furniture is no more!  But anyway, the pantry finishing touches.  When we last left off, we had just finished installing the pull-out shelves.  And the pantry looked like this:

We intended to put our microwave, which has taken up precious counter space over the last four years, above the refrigerator.  We feared that it would be a little awkward to have a microwave so high, but we powered through.  After all, I’m 5’9″ and Colby clocks in at a whopping 6’5″ so at least we would have no trouble reaching it without the aid of a step stool or ladder.  But before we could move the microwave, we needed an above-the-fridge shelf, since we didn’t want to set the microwave directly on top of the refrigerator.  We wanted more of a finished, built-in look.  To make this shelf, we started by installing the shelf supports which are 1″ x 3/4″ pieces of pine screwed into the pantry sides.

And then created the microwave shelf by first cutting down two pieces of scrap particle board (leftover from building the pantry sides), using another piece of pine to cover the gap between the two particle board pieces, screwing it all together from the bottom side.

We dry-fitted the shelf in place since nothing is more frustrating than building something, painting it, and then realizing it doesn’t fit (been there…done that…lessons learned).  Thankfully it fit better than your favorite skinny jeans after eating paleo for a few months and training for that 15K.

Not only did I take the time to pre-paint the shelf before installing it, but also all the trim pieces for the pantry.  The trim pieces helped hide all the rough, unfinished ends and gave the pantry that chunky, custom-built look we were going for.

Next up, is the shelf attack.  Remember when they looked like this?!

The ends were a bit on the unfinished side.  All it took to polish up the ends was attaching some pre-stained and polyed fronts.  They’re just tacked on right now with a bit of wood glue and a couple of nails but you can bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there’ll be sun…I mean…that we secured those shelf fronts in with screws.

The final finishing step was my favorite, adding the hardware.  It took us FORRRREVVVVVERRRRR to find the right hardware.  For the record….that’s “forever” like the Sandlot forever.  Makes more sense now, right?!  It’s also how we say goodbye to Goose when we leave him while grocery shopping on the weekends.  We’re all like “bye Goose, FORRREVVVVVERRRRR”.  Poor Goose.

For the hardware, we couldn’t use traditional drawer pulls since we needed the handles to screw in from the front and not the back.  So then we thought about window sash pulls for drawer handles.  But that was a fail since they looked so dinky on our freshly finished, chunky wood drawers.  Enter the screen door handle.  We picked up five of them for $2.99 each at Lowes along with some longer screws.  We wanted the screws to not only attach the drawer handle to the drawer front but also be long enough to drill right into the drawer itself for extra drawer from security and stability.

Boom…drawer handles are officially attached…Friday I’m in love!

This may have been the point during the pantry project that I mindlessly pulled each drawer open…and closed…open…and closed…open…and closed…and asked them where they had been all my life.  I mean…I’m not getting any younger over here.  And not being able to easily access the flour during cookie making is adding years to my complexion.  I mean, night cream only does so much.

Oh yeah, and then we created a chalkboard wall and started boxing out the beam in the kitchen.  But more on those projects later.  This is a pantry post and we certainly don’t want to bite the pantry’s moment, even if it does taste good.  It’s been a wild ride in our kitchen these days with some awesome projects in the hopper.  I can’t wait to share more with you!  All in good time dear readers…all in good time.

I couldn’t resist sharing the finished AND organized pantry, so here’s a Pinterest-worthy shot of how it’s looking in real time.

The paint had barely dried on the trim before I was up to my eyeballs in flour and sugar organizing all our baking supplies.  Colby was the one up to his eyeballs in flour since I, 100%, accidentally (I swear) spilled a bag of flour on his head while he was kneeling by the cabinets fixing a toe kick.  Whoops!  Good thing he loves me!  And that good thing for the laundry fairy!

So come back tomorrow for all the nitty-gritty of how we organized our pantry, which has turned into a full-on baking pantry.  I’ll even show you the not-so-Pinterest-worthy before shots of how we were storing our baking supplies.  If you want to feel good about your kitchen organization, no matter how bad you think it is, our before-organizing shots should do the trick.

Pssst…All I have to say tonight is, is it spring yet?!  I don’t know about you guys but I am DYING for spring to get here, more importantly, summer.  Did you all survive snowpocalypse?!  Anyone else start planning their garden this weekend while being snowed in?!

Comments

  1. Wow! Awesome job guys! It’s so perfectly built-in and fabulous! Way to add function and storage to your kitchen. I actually thought you were going to put a door in front of the pull out shelves, but I really like the open storage look! Too funny about the flour spill, I would have been laughing for days about it. I am dying for Spring too! I am in PA so slightly shorter winters here than you but man I’ve had enough snow! I have so many spray-painting projects to do and I’m itching to get them started! Anyway, can’t wait to see more of your kitchen updates, Angie! Take care, Amy 🙂

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Angie's Roost Campbell Family in front of home in 2021

Hi there! We're the Campbells. We traded in Maine city living for the country life in Vermont. You'll find us here fixing up a circa 1781 historic home, growing our own food, and filling this home with the memories and things that matter. Read more about us...

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