I'm in love....

with my new pantry! I'm giddy, joyful, THANKFUL, and happy that I finally have an honest to goodness pantry!!!! It took almost ten years to get, but they say good things come to those who wait. And my did it ever!!!!

So if you read prior post, you know that this house was the model and so we had to take it the way they built it. And for some unknown reason, they decided that it didn't need a pantry. Even though every other house that is this model has one, the builder decided that the neighborhood's model home didn't need one.

For years I've been trying to figure out how to get a pantry in this house. You see the pantry was supposed to be built into this wall:


Our solution up until recently was to put some of our dry food in this little bitty cabinet that has been in the laundry room:


And this lazy susan:


And this lazy susan:


And this drawer:


And the cabinet on the right:


That's five different places that I had to go to get food. The cabinet held mostly snack food. The first lazy susan held mostly breakfast food, dinner items (Hamburger Helper, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, etc.), and canned goods. The other lazy susan held flour, sugar, bread crumbs, etc. The drawer had all of my spices which meant was a pain since it was the bottom drawer and I could never make out what spices I had. And the right cabinet held our bread (which Mike always fussed about since they would always fall out with multiple Tupperware bowls).

I never had a good idea what I had on hand because the food was so bunched together, I couldn't see what I had. I had food that had expired in 2007 y'all!!! It was pushed behind so many things, I never knew it was there.

We kept saying "We need a pantry" but could never figure out how to do it or where it would go. Then we went house hunting. And a light bulb went off in my head! In the houses we looked at, they all had pantries but some of them also had a china pantry. They were built in cabinets that were set into an indent in the wall. And then I had my aha! moment.

We have a small hallway that connects the kitchen to the dinning room. And guess what? It's indented! So we started measuring the area and realized that the depth of the indent was 12 inches. Not very deep, but deep enough for food storage. So I got online and started searching for pantry cabinets. They're expensive!!! Holy cow!! Not only that, most of them are 18 inches deep. I spent almost a whole day looking for a cabinet. I googled everything I could think of. And then, finally, I came across "The Pink Emporium" Doesn't really scream pantry does it? Sounds more like a girly, frilly store (which I like but at the time, I was looking for a pantry). But then I saw it. This cabinet

30 inches across, 72 inches tall, and 12 INCHES DEEP!!! It was perfect!! I ordered two to put into our space.

Fast forward to this past Wednesday. The FedEx man delivered the two cabinets!!! Now keep in mind, when these cabinets arrived they were in a box, unassembled, and unfinished. While I went to choir practice, Mike put them together. It said on the box that they were "easy to assemble." I think that's code for "Get ready buddy! This is going to be time consuming!" I came home and Mike was almost finished putting them together. By bedtime, we had them together and had them ready to paint the next day.

I got up the next morning and prepared to paint those puppies! I chose a color called "Lincoln Cottage Black." It's a historic color from Valspar. I honestly thought between priming and painting it would take me till the early afternoon to finish. WRONG!!!! It took much longer than that! I primed and painted from 7:30 am till 7:00 pm. But boy was it worth it!!! Here's some pics:

The cabinets before painting:






Me painting the cabinet (yes I know I have paint on my rear. Those are my painting close and I think they have every color we've ever painted anything in this house on them. I thanked Mike for taking this picture):


This will give you some idea of how small the old pantry cabinet was. The two cats barely fit on one shelf:


And here's what the cabinets look like all painted and in their permanent home:


Left cabinet:


Right cabinet:


Look at all the food it holds!:




I never realized how many spices I have:


Keep in mind, all this food was spread out in five different places. Wow. I spent most of last night placing food in it and then just admiring it. Every time I've had to get something out of it, I've literally skipped over to it.

And now I truly believe that good things do come to those who wait.