Project: Pantry

Our first monthly house project to complete was an overhaul of our kitchen pantry.

The wire shelves that were in the pantry when we moved in were in BAD shape. They were dangerously close to falling down if too many items were on the shelf and in danger of collapse if anything was in the middle of the shelf. Things were a hot mess and the lack of any organization was killing me.

We decided to break this project down into baby steps so we could just spend an hour or two each day working on it so we wouldn't get burnt out.

I had previously pinned an image from The Container Store, their ELFA shelving looked like it would do the trick to get us organized.

 **NOT MY PANTRY, JUST MY INSPIRATION**
**Run don't walk to The Container Store for their Elfa shelving!**

Thursday night we emptied the shelves and popped them out of the brackets holding them in. We had to get them out to the curb before Friday trash pick up.

Friday's job was remove the brackets and patch all of the holes. This was Hubs' job. He did an excellent job of hiding the dozens of holes that were in the walls.

Saturday came and it was time to paint!!!! I picked out a coral color for an accent and would really make the white shelving pop. After two quick coats of paint, I was enamored with the project so far. We bought a whole gallon and used about 10% of it. Now I'm itching to paint a bathroom or other small space coral too.

We woke up this morning to unpack all the hardware we had purchased. We took advantage of The Container Store's Elfa Sale. The weekend before we had visited our closest Container Store and sat down with one of their designers to create the ideal plan for our space. It wasn't a tough space to plan for, but it was great to talk to someone who designs closets for a living. They had excellent advice and guided us in the right direction to have the most efficient space.

The installation was super easy. Just hang the horizontal bar with anchors and the two vertical pieces just hang down and support all of the shelves.

We just started putting in shelves from the bottom and messing around with the vertical spacing of the shelves as we went. With the Elfa shelves you can move everything around as much as you need, so it was super easy to get it just right to accommodate everything we would load onto each shelf.

We ended up with an extra shelf and the hardware for that piece and some storage containers we decided wouldn't work. We ran back to The Container Store to return the items and pick up a couple of extra containers to get everything organized and pretty!

I was so giddy getting everything put away and in the right spots. I was so excited as everything was coming together exactly as I had imagined. The final product was better than I could have hoped for!!! I can't wait to tackle some more closets and organizing projects around the house!

Have you tackled any home projects yet this year? Any big projects in the works?

**The Container Store has no idea who I am, just a fan of their Elfa shelving and the whole process. Their design consultants were SUPER helpful in getting this project going.