Pantry Project...

I feel like I could start all of my posts with some sort of "wow" comment.  Something like "Oh boy" or "Wowzers" or "Well, we did it".  Life is busy and when I get something finished, I am so impressed.  Waaaay back at the very beginning of February I decided to take on my problem pantry.  I've looked at every option.  I've had designs and quotes written up by two kitchen supply installers.  I've cruised IKEA and Home Depot dozens of times.  I've drawn up my own plans...and still couldn't find the perfect idea.  Sick of the open shelving with not enough space, I decided to just build a pantry to get the job done.

I reached out to my brother, Ebin, who is a builder and woodworker.  He lives in Maine but he agreed to be my consultant on the project.  I snapped some before pictures and emptied the shelves.  

February 1st

With Ebin's help, I taped out my pantry idea and waited for Ebin to send me a materials list.

February 5th

Ebin and I went back and forth.  Every couple of days I was calling or Facebook messaging him with some worry.  He was great.  Reassuring me we could figure it all out.

February 9th

Then we ran into our first major problem.  I wanted to leave enough space for a small counter and cupboard for the trash and recycling.  Problem, my trash bin was too big for the pantry space we had planned to use IKEA doors on.  Stress!  Thankfully, I found some smaller bins so I could make a smaller cupboard. 

Colter and Adell helped me get the corner painted (I'm a lucky girl).

February 16th

February 18th

Will started framing the new pantry walls for me.  I worked for days on the exact measurements for the pantry so there would be room for the trash bins AND the IKEA doors would fit.

February 23rd

After we got the pantry framed, we picked up a sheet of drywall.  You can't tell from this picture but our seats are pulled all the way up to the front with zero recline.  We are thankful for a minivan that can haul lots of stuff...even if the driver has to be sitting on the steering wheel to drive when we haul stuff.

Once the dry wall was placed, we did a little mudding.  I personally watched about 70 hours of YouTube videos to figure this out.  We also did a little dry run with the pantry doors...and they didn't fit!  I'm not even kidding around. Somehow (because I am a moron who doesn't know what she is doing) I measured about 1/2 and inch smaller than what we needed.  I wanted to cry.  I might have cried.  We figured we could cut notches at the hinge points in one side to get the 1/2 inch we were missing.  Thank heavens for family members who have jig saws.

March 2nd

I did manage to cut shelf brackets to hold our pantry shelving. 

March 8th

Will helped me install the shelf brackets one night.  I wanted to glue them to the wall and screw them in for extra strength.  He thought it would be better to just screw them in.  (Foreshadowing!)

By this point, our kitchen had been under construction for over a month.  I've swept up pounds of sawdust and wall plaster.  I was tired of having open shelving in two different places for our "pantry" and really tired of the mess.  So Will agreed to help me work late into the night getting the shelves installed. 

March 12th

Guess what.  We couldn't get the shelves in with all of the brackets already in place!  We had to remove the top set of brackets to put the shelves in.  We also discovered that the kid who cut our shelves at Home Depot cut them to be 42 and 1/8 inches wide instead of just 42 inches.  So even when we removed the brackets we couldn't get the shelves to fit!  We had to saw off the extra 1/8 an inch ourselves...at 11:00 pm...in the kitchen.  More sawdust.

But we got all the shelves in!  I spent a good part of the day loading the shelves with all of our pantry items.  It looks awesome!

March 15th

Tonight, Will agreed to finishing the pantry for our date night.  I didn't make dinner...we just let the kids veg out in front of the TV and got to work.  Guess what, our measurements still weren't right!?  Will had to cave out a few more places to get the doors to fit.  UGH.  This project has taken too long and required too much swearing.  We also had to shave off a bit of one of the shelves so the hinges would fit in one place.  Grrrr.

We did it! It is done, well almost, I need to get some handles.  I love it so much!  Many thanks to Ebin for helping me get this started and talking me off several mental ledges.  Many more thanks to my darling husband for indulging my ideas and building everything I dreamed up...but really for being so patient with ALL of my measuring mistakes. 

I also have to build the cupboard for the trash and recycling.  For now, I am so happy with this pantry!  Happy it is done.  Happy all my food and them some fits inside.  Happy my idea worked out (mostly).