We finally have a pantry!

This post is wayyyyyyyyy over due as our pantry was one of our first big changes we did to this house when we bought back in October 2018. But here I am in May 2019 just getting around to writing about it, whoops! Note: I am really sorry about the before photos. I took these when I was just documenting our progress on Instagram, and wasn't even considering blogging! I don't have any un-drawn on before photos of these angles, so bear with me!

When we first toured this home last summer, we knew we would want to make some cosmetic changes to the kitchen in time. We weren't interested in doing a big renovation, but were okay with painting cabinets and adding a backsplash. The only thing we knew for sure had to change was the pantry. The existing pantry was really small, and we knew would not be workable for all the food and appliances we have. Spenser loves to cook with gadgets, so we just simply needed more storage.

Here is what the existing pantry looked like. It's only 13 inches wide. Miracle of miracles, it fits a crockpot, but you have to put everything in on an angle to get them through the door! 

         

When we moved in, we had not originally planned to make any changes to the kitchen layout or flooring (due to budget restraints), but when we started the process of re-doing our floors, we didn't  have a choice.  The tile floor of the kitchen was set so much higher than our new hardwoods, it would be impossible to level off, and would ultimately be a dangerous trip hazard if we left it. In hindsight, I am so.so.so.so. glad we took up the tile before we moved in because holy dust bowl, it was messy. I don't know what I was thinking trying to wait! We knew that by tackling the kitchen floors, we would have to do the pantry at the same time so we went ahead and tacked that on, as well. It essentially doubled our budget, but it was worth it in the end.

Here are my crappy before photos from my Instagram stories before this blog was born!

 You can see just how deep this closet was, and how much space it took up in the kitchen. Aside from adding storage, our main goal for doing this was improving flow. There was hardly enough room between the closet and the counter to walk through without turning sideways to fit. Not great.

So, the pantry project to-do list was fairly straightforward:
✅Knock the closet wall back 30 inches so we had more walk way into the kitchen
✅Rotate the door 90 degrees to be on the new wall facing the kitchen
✅Add an electrical outlet for the microwave
Build shelving/trim/paint etc.
✅Add a light switch to where the old door was

Unexpectedly we found plumbing in that wall, so we had to add "move plumbing" to that to do list, which was not inexpensive. But at that point, we had already knocked the wall down so there was no turning back!

The evolution of this project took longer than expected. Thanks to delays in getting the plumber, electrician, drywall guy, and flooring team all lined up, we didn't get this finished, trimmed, or painted until mid-January. It wasn't a huge deal, since functionally it was fine, but it was annoying to wait almost 4 months to get it done! Here are some in-progress shots of how we lived with it through Christmas. 

And, here's what the finished product finally looks like 7 months later. For reference, the old wall used to come all the way out to where our Nest smoke detector now sits!!

Side by side of the old view and new!

     

I mean.... huge difference. Am I right or am I right? 

And before after of this angle: 

  

  

Overall, this was a drastic, drastic improvement to the flow of our kitchen, and gave us much needed functional storage space. We have more walkway between the pantry and the counter, a better sightline when you walk in from the garage, we doubled our storage for food and appliances, and I love the upgraded look the glass door adds to our builder-basic kitchen. 

The only downside is that we did sacrifice the only coat closet we have on the first floor to do this, but living in North Carolina, we only need warm coats for a few months. Since we use our kitchen multiple times a day, it felt like a worthy sacrifice (and it has been). To add some function back to our space, Spenser built this stylish entry-way drop zone for me, and we plan to add more coat/cleaning storage in a garage project coming soon.

I am so thrilled we pushed through our budget concerns and went ahead and did this project at the time we did. Removing the kitchen tile floor was a huge improvement in itself, and adding this extra storage has made us love using our kitchen (even if we still have cosmetic improvements to make here, down the road!). This was by far the biggest renovation (if you include flooring) I've ever been apart of, and "project creep" is real (when the to do list just keeps growing, and growing...) but I am so happy with how it turned out because it corrected several major pain points in our kitchen at at once.