A Pantry Makeover: Lifestyle, Style, and Function

Welcome back, friends!  It’s now week two of the One Room Challenge, where we are sharing the process of remodeling our pantry, and I thought it would be fun to share a little insight in to the style and function of the space with y’all, and how lifestyle plays a huge role in making it all work.

 

Lifestyle

Style and function, as I said in last weeks post and just about any other room makeover post, are my top considerations when designing a space, but I need to add another element to the mix. This pantry makeover came about because the function of the old one just wasn’t working for our lifestyle.  I mean, it was a terrible mess, and that all came down to how we managed our day-to-day.  On shopping trips we were always quick to buy things without making sure we had the space and need for them, which lead to a pantry overflowing.  Top that off with many meals being takeout instead of us cooking with what we had, and it became an unmanageable mess.  We had new stuff sitting on top of old stuff, and weren’t even touching it.  Sadly, so much of what we had in the pantry at the start of this remodel had to be thrown out, because it had expired.  I feel a lot of guilt about that, because I know we could and can do better.

A while back I shared our old pantry with my friend’s readers on her blog Home Made by Carmona.  Our pantry was in dire need of a makeover at the time, and so I sat down and thought about how I could manage what we had, and how that might translate in to helping others do the same.  If you’d like to have a look, click this link.  You can see the horrible before, and the cleaned up after (the new before).  I stand by the ideas I shared to clean up your pantry.  I just caution you to consider your lifestyle as you implement them.  You see, I was under the false impression that if I used all of the “right” pieces I would end up with a perfectly functioning machine of a pantry.  That was obviously not the case, which I learned the hard way.  Thankfully, my failure is your gain, right?  Be sure to check your stock before shopping.  Know that pretty doesn’t always equate to functional, and that even the most thought out pantries with all of the best storage pieces require attention from time to time.  My goal is to get our current food stock down to a weekly restock, considering our tendency to want to eat out on the weekends.  I think it’ll not only help us in keeping it organized, but also help us to keep to a weekly meal plan, and believe me, we need it around here!

Style & Function (Affiliate links included.)

All that being said, with this remodel I decided to pick new pieces to compliment the overall design style of the space.  I shared a couple of pictures in my last post to give y’all an idea of the style I’m hoping to achieve.  My hope is that the elements that I chose to incorporate into the design convey an old country store meets modern coastal style pantry.  I get giddy over small shops with this look, and I wanted it for myself.  Bear with me, I’ll be sharing actual progress pictures of the space in next weeks post.  I didn’t want to overload y’all on this post.  I mean, if you’ve even read this far, thank you.

As I started to choose storage, decor and lighting for the space I kept the rest of my home in mind.  It’s well known that you can go wild in small spaces and make it spectacular and different from the rest of your home, but I didn’t want to go that route in here.  What can I say, I like a calm white space!  I did consider using color, but I after thinking about why I wanted to do it, which ended up being that it was popular in design right now, I chose to go with my gut and stick to white.  It’s not that it’s safe, it’s that I truly do like the look, and honestly I wasn’t up to figuring out how to paint the pre-fab utility closet cabinet that’s going into the space.  Haha!  Plus, it’s an extension of the kitchen, and I wanted it to compliment it, not distract from it.

You can see my selections for the space in the mood board above.  I chose a polished nickel globe light to compliment the lighting in our kitchen, and for the price I bought two!  One for this space and one for the laundry room, which we will be making over to compliment this new renovation.  Stay tuned for that!  For storage on the lower shelving in the pantry I chose woven baskets in two different sizes, and to compliment them I chose smaller white metal baskets with bamboo handles, to hold all of our smaller food items on the top shelves.  No pantry is complete without canisters, right?  I personally love having clear canisters to hold cereal, pasta, or packaged snacks for the family.  I’m mixing in a couple of galvanized canisters too which I’ll store on our countertops to compliment the metal baskets on the upper shelves.  Speaking of countertops, they will be butcherblock, so that’ll give a pop of color to the space!  Since this is a walk-in pantry, and we’re changing the layout of the space, I needed to choose a new rug.  I’m still trying to decide between these two cotton rugs from Chango & Co..  Aren’t they wonderful?  They are just as cute in person!  I’m sure I’m going to come across something else that I’m going to want to incorporate into this space, and when I do, I’ll be sure to share it with y’all.  Until then, stay tuned for next weeks post!  The weeks during this challenge always seem to fly by, so it wont be long!

-Iris

New here?  Check out our past room makeovers here!