Storage closet to food pantry project, DONE!!!!

Did I really start this pantry re-do back in November? I guess the time got away from me over the winter.

I can finally say the new food pantry is DONE!!!

Here is my first post about it from way back in November:

http://emptynestinthemidwest.blogspot.com/2012/11/turning-hallway-closet-into-kitchen.html


Quick re-cap of the project-

I started with this odd little closet in the hallway:

It needed to be emptied first. Most of the time this closet was kept pretty organized, but this is what it looked like the day I decided to turn it into a pantry. Cooking oil, my toolbag, my sewing machine, an extension cord..........these are all important things in my life.



I got it all emptied:

 I started with a few coats of white paint on the walls:

Next I taped the walls so I could paint stripes:

After making my stripes a little neater:

That was where I left off in November. This project didn't get much attention over the winter months. I had done a few rows of stenciling and for some reason I lost my mojo with this project. This pantry project sat all winter untouched.

I picked it back up in the spring and got my stenceling finished.

I did go back and do the stenceling on the stripe in the corner. I had to cut my stencil to get it in the corner, so I saved that part for last.

I LOVE IT!!!

The lines from my stencils are not perfectly perfect. I thought it added character to the design so I continued on with the "sloppy" look.
I'll write another post soon about my process with the striping and the stenciling. In case anyone wants to try their hand at this type of project, I may be able to offer a few tips about what worked for me (and what didn't work).

I really love the way this project turned out.

Next, it was time to put new tiles over the floor of the closet. We bought grey peel n stick vinyl tiles for about $2.00 a piece. We needed 6 tiles, and Home Depot sells single tiles so we didn't have to buy a whole box of them.

I don't think I took pictures of the finished floor, but these are what the vinyl tiles look like that we bought.

Next came shelves. Previously, there were 2 shelves in this closet, but we added a 3rd shelf for the new pantry.

I painted them white before we installed them.

Then we put the food in the new pantry.
Everything fits in here so well, with plenty of room for more food!

Tim bought this small battery operated light so we would have some light in there for now.

He has to do a lot of electrical rewiring to the house this summer, so he will add a hard-wired light in this closet soon.

This one works well for now. He installed it just above the door on the inside of the pantry.



And finally, we added a rack for spices to the inside of the pantry door. We bought this rack at Home Depot for about $20.00

So, (other than the light Tim needs to install) I can officially call this pantry project DONE!!!!!

For the fun of it, here are the BEFORE/AFTER shots:

BEFORE (craft closet)

AFTER (food pantry)