FROM CLOSET TO PANTRY

When I was in high school I wanted to to be an interior designer.  I ended up majoring in communication, but I still had and will always have a passion for interior design. When I lived at home with my parents I was constantly changing things around in my room, moving furniture in our living room, or changing out our home decor.  

Now, I love having my own home where I can decorate and design to my hearts content, well as long as my husband is on board too. 😜   We bought our home almost 5 years ago, it was a great home with great bones, but it was a bit of a fixer upper.

Over the years we have been slowly remodeling and fixing it up. Some areas we gutted and rebuilt, while others, we just did cosmetic changes, like painting or changing outdoors. Last year I took on a project of converting the coat closet into a pantry.

Right off our kitchen is a coat closet that we don't use. We live in Central Florida and our coats are in a storage container. So, I decided to turn that closet into the perfect pantry for my kitchen. The pantry that is currently in the kitchen wasn't really working because of lack of space.  

When we remodel our kitchen that space will be used for something else. The closet was pretty much a blank canvas. It had the standard ClosetMaid shelf that comes in every home closet. I took that out, cut off the part where you hang the hangers and put it back as just a shelf.  To complete my project, I purchased a few pantry storage items from my favorite home furnishing store, IKEA!

The original pantry has only 4 shelves that are deep but not wide.  I was constantly shoving things back and forgetting that I even had them.  With my new pantry, I wanted to make sure I had more shelving and that all my food was visible and assessable.  

The Closetmaid shelf is at the top and fits completely across the width of the pantry.  I use that shelf for some of  bigger items that come in containers or boxes like pasta and snacks.  For more shelving, I added the MULIG shelf unit ($29.99), it has 5 shelves.  

The thing I like best about this shelving unit is that the lowest shelf is almost to the ground, that means no wasted space underneath.  The shelves are deep enough to hold a good amount of stuff, but not too deep that I can't see what's in the pantry. It also securely fastens to the wall so I don't have to worry about it moving or being pulled down.   

I usually buy a variety of produce so I wanted a good place to store all the fruits and veggies.  Prior to the new pantry I had to put everything together in a basket on the counter and that took up a lot of space. For all my fruits and veggies, I installed the ALGOT upright wall basket unit ($25).  

It is a great storage piece, it screws into the wall and has 5 floating wire baskets that can be be removed if need. It fits perfectly in the space that I installed it and I my produce doesn't have to be out in plain sight, they are now nicely tucked away in the pantry.

All of my spices were crammed into thin cabinets that anchor the stove. I had the same problem with my spices that I had with food in the original pantry, they get shoved back and I'd forget I even had them.

To accommodate all of my spices, for cooking and baking, I created a spice rack on the closet door by using 5 BEKVAM multi purpose racks ($3.99/ea). They come in natural birch wood color but I spray painted them white to match the rest of the pantry. Now with my new design I can see everything I have and nothing is hiding.

I'm happy with the way it turned out. I love the functionality and the visibility of everything in my pantry. It definitely stores a lot more than the original pantry and it's in a much better location for me to access everything I need when I am cooking. I really love doing this kind of thing, it's so much fun! I want to hear what you have changed, updated, or remodeled in your home?