{House}: Pantry Progress!

When we moved into our house in 2009, the very first thing we did was take the washer and dryer out of the pantry in the kitchen and convert a closet to a laundry closet. We had these sweet babes:

(we never got a picture of them in the pantry because that would involve some thinking instead of just acting on the first whim we have)

and we changed over to this for laundry:

which left us with a sweet space for a pantry. One half of the closet is the water heater and HVAC but there's a whole wall for storage, which was more than our last house. So excited, we couldn't wait to organize our space...

At the time this was like the Taj Mahal of pantries. We were so pumped. "Look! You can walk in!" Don't mind the yellowing walls, the disgusting floor, the knobs from the water spouts.

Eventually we got a little more sophisticated:

Yeah buddy.

Well that system hadn't worked in some time. The food in baskets was not good but the shelves were not suited for storing food. The shelves weren't wide enough so they didn't maximize the space either.

So, after dreaming of a pantry with potential for a while, my wildest dreams finally came true. First, we cleared out the pantry and painted it:

While the pantry is empty, check out the kitchen:

(oh yeah, you like those wooden shelves? Remember we bought those to use from IKEA but they were too short, wide, and too spaced out between shelves #fail)

And after our fabulous wonderful contractor got done, built in shelves, made to order!

They've still got to be painted and everything loaded back in there but yay! What a difference, huh?

In having places to store your food,

{House}: Project Organization - Pantry.

When we moved into our house, the "pantry" was nonexistent. There was a HVAC closet with a washer/dryer in it. The very first thing we did (as in a plumber came over days after we moved) was take a hall closet and turn it into a laundry closet. In doing so, by moving out the washer and dryer (we got rid of the old pair we inherited on Craig's List and bought a new-to-us pair on the CL that were front loaders), we made space for a pantry.

It has gone from no organization to this:

to this:

to now this:

Needless to say, the current situation wasn't working for us. With more food, more stuff, and less organization, the result is just flat out embarrassing.

So I was browsing the IKEA website, one of my favorite past times, and saw this picture of a pantry:

The GORM shelving unit appears to be perfect for our pantry... but 1) I don't want to drive to the ATL again to get it (sorry Beth) and 2) I happen to know a handy sibling who could build this for me.

So now I'm crossing my fingers that my little brother finds time in his busy schedule for the summer to build some shelves for our pantry. Otherwise I may resort to having to throw one of my seven boxes of pasta away...

In plans and projects,

A little bit at a time.

I spent a few hours Sunday working on my guest bedroom. You may remember from my House Goals post that I would like to organize this room. In an effort to hold myself accountable to this, I'm posting my progress. It isn't much... but every little bit works towards a lot in the end.

First I went through all the clothes in my dresser and closet:

 I ended up with a nice sized pile - probably one trash bag towards my four bag goal for Goodwill:

 I also set aside the real polos and polo v-necks I'd outgrown from college. I've got a favorite student that I'm going to give these to - she'll appreciate them so that makes me happy.

 I also folded and put all the clothes on the bed into piles by category (the tallest is my loungewear/pjs - which is what I most wear the most since that was all fresh laundry). I also (finally) unpacked from the beach and washed all those clothes. Yeah, that was a little delayed.

Next step? Putting these away, organizing the clothes in our bedroom and hallway, and then dejunking the room so I can decorate!

In cleanliness,

Pantry Business.

When we moved in our house, the pantry (or what should have been - it is a large closet off the kitchen) housed an archaic washer and dryer as well as our HVAC and water heater. Our very first project in this house was to move the washer and dryer so we'd have a real pantry.

What that meant was putting in some free/hand me down shelves in and being ecstatic that we had storage space:

It was nothing fancy (you can see in this picture that the utilities take up a lot of room and the floor is sort of funk-nasty). But it was OUR pantry. 

Well, with this renovation we took the pantry a step further. With a helpful reminder from my mom, I remembered that I had a huge utility shelf in the garage left over from my college days. We put it together and slid it into the pantry. I picked up some baskets at Big Lots for $1/each and organized all our dry food by type. Here's the result:

We were also able to put the recycling and dog food in the pantry with the switch up which means our new kitchen won't have that out in it. Every little upgrade counts!!

In having an entire basket dedicated to baking goods,

Slow Progress is Progress.

The weather has really put a damper on our progress. Monday, John couldn't work because of the snow. Tuesday he worked a lot. Wednesday he had an appointment and when it was over it was a small blizzard. They worked again today - so got some progress in... but slowly. 

Kitchen as of now looks pretty similar to the last update:

If you look to the bottom left of the picture, around the window, and around the pantry door, you can see that the trim is back on. If you look to the top right, you can see that I picked a color - Crushed Rock, which is a United color that I got at Sherwin Williams. I'm not sold on it in the kitchen but like it for the den so I am thinking on it. 

Also accomplished recently, my mom and I tackled more painting projects. In addition to painting the trim (as seen above), we also painted both hallways (which were the last remnants of the ubiquitous white in our house when we bought it):

The front hallway got a coat of Bee's Wax like the living room and dining room:

 The back hallway got Rainwashed (also Sherwin Williams) - the back bathroom will eventually get that color too in order to tie it together. Also, John built the dressing area for this hallway:

 (To the right you can see the bathroom, still green but not for long). I'm going to put a vanity light and mirror on the wall and add a chair for my dressing area - this used to be a door way and we created a "master suite" out of it. 

Since painting, I am now stuck with a decor problem. My folk painting from Trolley Stop clashed with the color and so it got a new home in the den, which leaves a blank spot on the wall:

 I was thinking about getting some sort of artsy type thing to go there but I don't exactly know what. 

Today we had a snow day and so I got to see the cutest thing - all three boys snuggled up together on the futon. I'll leave you with that:

Happy Friday,
 

Purging and organizing.

One great thing about our house is the storage space. We've got two double closets (one in the office and one in the guest room), as well as a regular closet in our bedroom. For a midtown house, that is a fair amount of storage.

One issue, though, is that I have so many clothes that I haven't entirely unpacked my clothes. I still had one big box of clothes from the move, as well as three tubs of clothes still not unpacked from camp (!) and one suitcase from our summer trip left unpacked. The middle room (guest room) was getting to the point where I could not walk so Saturday I spent 5 hours folding/putting away clothes, mostly organizing. Saturday night I was left with this:

 Nothing on the floor (miraculous if you ask me), with piles by category on the bed. We haven't done anything really with this room - still white walls, no decor. In fact, it is the last untouched room in the house. A bit of a challenge lies ahead... Once those clothes are put away. 


So my first pile to tackle was the "cardigan" pile. I started hanging them in the armoire. I tried to color categorize. When I was finally done, I counted how many cardigans I have. As I announced on facebook, I have over 50 cardigans. Now, I wear cardigans to work often so this isn't too much of a shock but I didn't realize I have over 50!

 Now I must finish putting away clothes and do the massive piles of laundry that resulted from unpacking my summer travels... Hi, my name is Kathryn and I own 50 cardigans.

Coat Closet Project

With Eric in town, I was motivated to get a lot of projects done. One that I had been wanting to do for a while was to organize the front closet. Our coat closet is very deep and had been stacked with various home items since a major clean up in December when all the extras just got thrown into the closet. 

First, I took all our jackets and hung them up on the rod (innovative, right?). Then I stacked the paint cans on the floor in the back instead of having them scattered all over the closet. I took out two of the shelves against the back wall to use for another project and so this made our coat rack more legit (before, the coats were pressed up against two shelves). 

After putting away various things where they really should have gone, the coat closet was again possessing the ability to walk into - and with the recent ripping of the carpet, also was nice and clean with wood floors. It was time to implement my organization project: a pegboard wrapping paper station. 

First, I went to Home Depot and bought a 2X4 sheet of pegboard from their pre-cut wood aisle. This pegboard comes white and was about $5. I decided to take leftover spray paint and paint it turquoise. 

I also bought a bag of hooks and a set of three baskets. The total for all of that was about $10. With those supplies, I put the pegboard up in the closet on one wall and had this: