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Mr. DIY and I were all set to start on the kitchen at the mountain cottage, but realized that we needed an area to set up a temporary kitchen and kitchen storage during the kitchen reno. Since the entrance/laundry room had a sink, we would use it to set up a makeshift kitchen, but there really wasn't an area for storage.
Then I realized that we could use an under utilized closet in between the kitchen and the living room for a pantry. The closet was the perfect place to add more storage, since the kitchen is pretty small and won't have very many cabinets. If you look at the layout of the mountain cottage, the closet should be the coat closet just inside the entry door, but since the house was built with the back of the house near the driveway, this closet isn't where you enter, but on the other side of the house and doesn't really make sense to use it as a coat closet.
Anyway... Here's how the closet looked before... definitely a big waste of space...
First thing we did was remove the doors and take everything out. Instead of making the pantry the whole width of the space, I thought it would be great to have a removeable kitchen cart to add a little more workspace should we need it.
Since we will eventually be installing pine flooring throughout the house, Mr. DIY installed some pine boards and started working on the cabinet on the right.
Once he finished the cabinet, I got to work finishing it.
While I was painting and staining the right size cabinet, Mr. DIY built a beautiful rolling cart. He made a custom sized cart that fit perfectly on the left side of the pantry.
I started painting the slat shelves with a paintbrush, but it just didn't look smooth enough. I sanded them down a bit and painted several coats with my HomeRight Finish Max paint sprayer. The spray painted finish looked so much better. The shelves were painted white and the legs were painted Benjamin Moore Balboa Mist and the top was stained using a blend of MinWax Provincial and Rustoleum Driftwood, finished with a coat of poly.
Mr. DIY built more shelves above where the cart would go. Then we found a piece of old wood outside at the mountain cottage and thought it would be perfect for an apron rack. I used a spray poly to finish the wood, but no staining was necessary.
We added oil rubbed bronze hooks.
Beadboard was added to the back wall before the cabinets were installed. I'm not sure if you can tell, but the panels and legs on the cart are painted Balboa Mist and the beadboard and shelves are painted white.
The baskets on the left hold kitchen towels. The cabinet on the right is the perfect place for a coffee/tea station. Mr. DIY even installed an outlet to accommodate a coffee maker.
I found the baskets at Ikea.
We both love how it turned out!
Here's the kitchen cart pulled out a little bit...
...and the pantry with the kitchen cart all the way out.
Once again, here's how the closet looked BEFORE:
...and after:
Hope you enjoyed the tour of our new Vintage Style Pantry.
Now, on to the kitchen reno!
Pam
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