My New Pantry

I have become increasingly frustrated with the industrial shelving we use inside our pantry. The unit is too deep and things get lost in the back. There wasn’t enough shelves inside and it didn’t take advantage of the whole width of the pantry closet. Plus it was always so dark in there.

Here is a picture of the pantry as it was (kind of). This is a pic from my post about pantry organization last year, so it actually looks much better in the photo than in reality a year later:

I decided I wanted to pull out the industrial shelf and install more customized shelving. Over the weekend Belle and I went to Lowes to have some shelves cut and get supplies for the project, which ended up costing $70.

Yesterday I finally got the project started and finished. After removing the old shelf, I gave the pantry a coat of paint by mixing some colors we had on hand to make a blue-gray color.  Then I began installing the shelves. As with all projects, there was a lot more work involved than I originally planned. I discovered the pantry was a half inch wider in the front than in the back. Of course I measured the front to get my wood cut, which meant I had to break out my saw and cut each piece an additional half an inch. I used 1×2′s to hold up the shelving and the process was painfully slow. Finally, 7 hours and 8 shelves later I was finished.

I decided to use ball jars in half gallon and quart sizes to store my baking supplies, grains and beans. They are a really cheap storage solution since even the half gallons only cost 1.50 each and the quart sizes run about 75 cents.

I made labels for the jars using the same kraft paper I labeled my spice jars with.

After I printed out two sheets of labels I put them in a laminating pouch back to back and ran them through my new laminator that I got for Christmas. I cut each one to size and used a hole puncher for the decorative edge. Then I ran them through my sticker maker and put them on the jars.

If only my back didn’t hurt so much from all the work I did yesterday, maybe I would be in good enough shape to bake something and start enjoying my new pantry.