CORNER PANTRY REVEAL

I’m so excited to share our new pantry and how we organized it with you!  First of all, let me say I feel guilty I haven’t been updating my blog enough, blogger guilt is a very real thing… sigh.  Long story short, I’ve been overwhelmed, happy, and up to my eyeballs in home projects.  I’m a virgo and I honestly think that explains everything… so I’ll just move along.

This is our 7th house that we’ve purchased and I’ve never had a pantry I was happy with.  Our last pantry in Colorado was a happy upgrade for me because we were able to build and design it from scratch, but because our kitchen was so small I was forced to put the microwave in the pantry and it was still lacking in space.  I think the microwave in the pantry was a great idea for our miniature sized kitchen but I had to sacrifice storage.  So when it came to building this pantry I was determined to get it right.  The new kitchen in Maine had a ton of space, it had so many possibilities which made it even more overwhelming for me.  When you’re designing a kitchen from scratch, especially a large kitchen, deciding on the pantry size is very scary!

Let’s start with the original pantry.  It was absurdly huge, big enough to fit a freezer inside, and it made the shape and feel of the kitchen extremely awkward.

Here’s where things got a bit crazy in the remodel.  We had to raise our ceiling to remodel the pantry, or maybe I should say for my kitchen vision.  It appears the previous owners built out the giant pantry because a large section of the ceiling was lower than the rest.

The kitchen ceiling drops down because the above room has a step down (into the kitchen ceiling) because the roof wasn’t built at full height.  So basically the dropped ceiling was so you wouldn’t hit your head walking in the upstairs hallway.  I don’t know about you but stuff like this drives my insane… remember I’m a virgo.  So like a bunch of nuts we hire professionals to raise our ceiling and cut our roof open and rebuild it in Maine during one coldest months of the year!

What can I say, we’re risk takers.  Luckily we didn’t have any snow or rain while the roof was exposed but we did have a pipe freeze.  No worries, my husband loves fixing pipes, they’re his toys.

Drumroll please….. I got my nice, flush, even ceiling that I so desperately craved!  Once the ceiling was raised we spent a good while determining the size.  I decided a corner pantry was the way to go.  The pantry space we decided on was large enough to walk in and to have plenty of storage but not awkwardly large like the last pantry.

FYI our full kitchen remodel is slowly coming to an end.  We’re just finalizing the island, pendant lights, and countertop and then we’ll have a full kitchen reveal up.  During this time we also installed and stained our pine hardwood floors that you can read about HERE.

Our future island will be black so I decided on a black door, and I wanted a glass door so I could always see my food and be disciplined to keep my pantry organized.  We stained our floors with dark tung oil and I decided to do the same with our pantry shelves.

My overall goal was to have a clean pantry design that was easy to access, be functional, and be visually pleasing.  We mostly eat from scratch, and I love to cook so I wanted all my ingredients conveniently displayed in front of me.  We’re also tall people and have no problem accessing the shelves.  It might not be a design that works for everyone but it works well for us.

I love using the Pop storage containers from The Container Store.  They keep ingredients fresh for a very long time and stack well.  For items that don’t need to stay airtight I used glass canisters, the round shape works well in the corner pantry.  Love my baskets too, they hide the ugly back stock and mismatched things.

When it comes to bottle storage such as oils and vinegars, lazy susans are the way to go, it’s so easy to find everything!

For storage on the bottom I purchased unfinished crates from Home depot, stained them in food safe dark tung oil and my hubby added casters.  It’s so handy having them on wheels, I just pull them out with my foot, grab what I need and slide them back in.

We love our new pantry!  Everything was perfectly organized and it made my Thanksgiving cooking much easier!  I’ve linked my favorite pantry products below for purchase.  Thanks for reading!  Can’t wait to update more home stuff soon.

SHOP THE BLOG

Bread Box | Round Glass Containers | Pop Storage Containers | Floor Baskets with Lid | Wood Crates | Round Floor Basket | Tiered Can Organizer | Packet Holder | Lazy Susan | Shelf Baskets | Dark Tung Oil