Pimp My Pantry: Day 2

Big announcement! This is the last post on Blogger (aka blogspot.com)! We're moving on and moving up to theteardos.com! We hope you will stop by when we go live on Monday morning. Until then, please be patient as we work out kinks and try to make it extra purdy :-) Please note that current subscriptions will not be transfered. We are more than happy to subscribe you ourselves this weekend if that is easiest or you can resubscribe on Monday through the new (more reliable) service. Just let us know in the comments. We're sorry for any inconvenience!

Now onto the post:

Let's remember that this was supposed to be Operation Pantry P-R-I-M-P. Somehow, in the process of designing the overwrought action plan for yesterday's post, I channeled my inner gangster and turned it into P-I-M-P. Whoops! Apparently my pantry will now have a whole lot of 'tude. I'm cool wit dat.

[shudder]

Okay, sorry. Back to normal over here. This w.a.s.p. can't pull that off for more than two sentences.

So, to start, we have a thrilling picture:

 

 

Okay. Sorry, yes, that's another white wall. But that's the last one, I promise! And doesn't it look great?! This was the first thing I had to accomplish today. A nice coat (two, actually) of flat white. (I just used paint that the previous owners left so it was even the same white! Hurray for free.) Since the pantry was so banged up and stained, this made a huge difference in person.

But that's not where I left it for the day! Oh no, ideeeeed.

You know how when you start a project and then things just keep getting added to the process? Yeah, that happened here. I kept staring at the white walls and then looking down at the horrible trim:

 

This is the color of the trim over the entire house. Doors, baseboards, crown moulding, everywhere. We had already decided that we're going to give it all a nice coat of white. However, due to having the paint from the previous owners, we learned that the trim was painted in oil-based paint. Ugh.

After some googling and being completely traumatized by the potential hazards of putting latex paint directly over oil (we're going to be using only low odor & no voc latex paint throughout the house), I decided to just call the guys at Lowe's. They calmed me down from my oil/latex tizzy and suggested we use this product:

 

 

And let me just say: it rocks. It goes on like Elmer's glue. So, with this knowledge (and huge gallon of happy, low voc primer) we decided that going ahead and painting the trim would be best while the pantry was empty and everything was taped, etc. This also gave me more practice at cutting in with my favorite 2" angled brush (see above). So after a bit of painting and priming, the pantry had nice fresh, white trim. (I'll spare you another all-white photo.)

Now it was time to add some pattern! I downloaded this great stencil from Jones Design Company (find it here) and printed it out:

 

 

Then, I traced it onto cardboard and cardstock. (the reason for my genius with be forthcoming). ;-) I then taped a level to my cardboard stencil so I could keep the world straight as I traced:

 

 

So then, it was only a matter of finding center and then trace and trace and trace and trace...

 

 

(see the pretty white trim? I'll spare you the mental image of me trying to do a happy dance in a 3 foot square.)

You'll see that I ended up needing to do some partial shapes and the edge. This is where my cardstock came in. It could easily fold where I needed it to, so I wouldn't have to cut or maim my cardboard stencil. *muahahaha*

After I unfurled my claw-shaped-hand from around the pencil, I took one of the rejects from our living room test swatching. (Another post for another day) It is Behr "French Silver". I then painted on the inside of the lines like so, omitting every other shape:

 

At this point, I will freely admit that I was tempted to just go ahead and paint the whole thing grey. But, our inspiration for the color scheme came from the runner rug we have directly outside the pantry:

 

(Its from West Elm) See those edges? Such a fun punch of color. And I figured, where else could I so easily include a pop of cheeriness? A pantry is the perfect place for that. So I got the Behr color "Pear" in a sample. And here she is in action on the wall:

 

A finished shot with the white trim, you say? I don't mind if I do:

 

 

Even with the newspaper still down (I'm going to do a second coat of white on the trim as recommended on the can) it is HAPPY!

 

So what do with think? A pantry with attitude? It's on it's way, methinks. Is it wrong that I'm almost sad to be putting up shelves in front it? There will be no small amount of pouting if we can't see the wall through the groceries... Just keepin' it real.

See you guys on the flip side Monday morning!

 

A girl with a plan:

Okay, so here's the plan: take four days and completely makeover the pantry.

That's is the plan, at least. You know that, "you plan, God laughs" idiom? Yeah, that's my life. So, we're through Day One and already behind. Here's where we started:

 

 

Ouch. I tried, really I did. I sorted, I put things in bins, I labeled:

 

 

The whole system broke down, soooo more effort is required. Hence, Operation "Pantry Primping"!

 

 

So, all the food got moved into the dining room. The shelves were removed and we were left with a million brackets:

 

 

A screwdriver and a pair of pliers later:

 

A bunch of holes. Oh goody.

It's like an archeological dig! I'm just glad I didn't find wallpaper...

Some spackle later:

 

And then some primer:

 

 

Okay, so I just showed you a bunch of pictures of white walls, I realize. Sorry about that... But what we have now is a beautiful blank slate. Well, a dirty blank slate. You can't see on the photos, but these walls are groooooossssss. Splatters and stains. So we're going to give everything a nice fresh coat of cream.

So that's where we are! So glad to be getting started on the epic to-do list! We'll update you soon on the progress...

Most people know how to do these things...

... we are not most people.

I will freely and without shame (okay, maybe a tiny bit) admit that I am intimidated by things I've never done before. The anxiety is not usually restrictive, but it does occasionally mean it takes me longer to get around to doing something than normal. I'm one of those people that needs to eye it from the corner and summon a little sisu before proceeding.

Oddly enough (and do feel free to laugh) this applied to changing out our home's air filter. As first time homeowners, there are a lot of new things to try. There are plenty of DIY home projects I've done before, thanks to my parents letting me help out, but changing out an air filter wasn't on that list. And now that I've done it, I see how easy it is! Like, I'm thinking our cats should do it next time, easy. And that would be a fair task considering how much of their fur ends up in those filters!

So, for any corner-dwellers like me, here's the process:

Here's our downstairs one:

 

A close up:

 

 

Take a flat head (for ours) screwdriver and turn.

Ours is held in place by a latch that only requires a half turn to unlock. (The electric screwdriver was all that I had handy but it wasn't at all necessary)

 

There were hinges on the bottom so the whole thing just swings down, revealing the furry mess:

 

 

And side by side with a new one:

 

Ew.

 

So that's it! Replace the furry with the clean, swing up the cover and retighten the screw. Easy peasy nice and cheesy. I love a straight-forward project!

Our upstairs is much like the down, but the filter is in the attic, thus making the pictures a lot less blog-worthy.

An action packed post, huh? Oh the drama! The suspense!! Har. More fun coming your way this week!

 

Sofa Sneak Peek

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, our couches arrived! And since we were inundated with literally one request ;-) to see them, and I am nothing if not eager to please, here is a little sneak peek of them. We're planning a few posts which will include a whole house tour and epic to do list in the next couple of weeks, so please forgive the narrow angles of these pictures. A girl's gotta keep up the suspense!!

 

Could that mantle be any more oppressive? Ugh. Trust that it's getting many coats of paint.

A gratuitous artsy shot: