Category: Home Decor

Don’t Cha Wish Your Pantry Was Neat Like Me

Um, can you tell I’ve been rocking out to my Britney Spears station on Pandora again? I was totally going to call this post Pantry Porn, but then I got worried about the weirdo pervs who might find this post while looking for some boobies in a pantry so I changed it to a play on Don’t Cha from the Pussycat Dolls. Which I guess didn’t really work, but oh well.

Here’s a refresher if you haven’t heard the song in a while. Oh, and be warned… you’re totally going to wish that you hadn’t just eaten a piece of pizza and immediately make plans to do some situps. Oh, just me? Hmm…

Who wants to play a sassy version of musical chairs now? Anyways, now that we’re all dropping it like it’s hot* and swinging our hair around, let’s get to the pantry brewhaha.

I mentioned that one of my goals over the holiday was to finally turn my mess of a pantry into something so organized that it would make me swoon.

Here are my “before” shots. No swooning here:

before - full pantry
Here it is in all it’s “before” glory. Our pantry holds all my baking stuff, snacks, party stuff, and oh yeah… dog food.
before - baking stuff
Here’s a close up of my baking ingredients. Every time I pulled out the flour I ended up covered in it. We’re super lucky that we didn’t end up with bugs anywhere!

I spent about $100 total at The Container Store and ordered a can rack, 2 double cabinet shelves, a tiered spice organizer, 2 party tubs, containers for sugar and flour, and some shelf liner.

I was actually quite impressed with everyone I ordered… except for the can rack. You are supposed to be able to put your canned veggies and soups on the rack for easy access, but it was kind of a pain in the butt to get things on and off the rack. I’m kind of lazy though, so instead of returning it I repurposed it to hold my hot chocolate and cider packets.

Here’s my after shots. Oooh… Ahhhhh..

after - full pantry
Here’s the “after” shot. So nice and neat and PRETTY!
after- spices
Check out those baking ingredients! You can actually SEE what’s going on. I also LOVE the flour and sugar containers, they’re designed so you can just put the whole bag inside!
after - snacks area
Yeah, check out the snacks on that shelf. (Does that sound dirty? Darn, I really am going to end up with perverts on my website… again).
after - party stuff and wine
I used the cute bins to keep stuff together, like everything I need for a party — plates, plastic ware, napkins, straws, etc. And yes, that’s Mommy’s Time Out wine… a gift from a friend that I haven’t cracked open yet.
after - can rack
This is the can rack that didn’t work so well for cans. It did a pretty good job with my hot chocolate, cider packets and assortment of chocolate chips though!

I completed this project about a month or so ago and I have to say that if you looked in my pantry today it looks almost exactly like these pictures. So yay for pantry organizing!

Have you done any organizing projects lately? Would I swoon if I looked your pantry? Have you created a cheesy dance-mix station to keep you PUMPED on a long work day?

 

* I randomly clicked over to the post where I talked about my pantry plans and saw that I wrote, “Break out the dance music because there is going to be a pantry organizing party up on my hizhouse this weekend! BOOYA.” I’m not really sure why pantry organizing makes me want to dance like a Pussycat Doll, but at least I’m consistent with my dancing feelings.

Spoiling Myself with Something Fun

So let’s slowly back away from the sickness that engulfed my family earlier this week* and talk about something fun. House décor – yay!

As much as I like Target and Homegoods, for their fun assortment of pretty much everything you need for your home, I LOVE the eclectic mix of items available on etsy. In the past I’ve bought one-of-a-kind necklaces, feathers for my hair  and even commissioned rings to be made for my sisters and myself.  I really enjoy having something that was made with love by a crafty person, instead of something that was done by a machine overseas.

owl cover

Every year I browse the gorgeous handmade calendars and convince myself that I don’t really need one. Or, that I’ll use my graphic design skillz and make my own pretty calendar. Which I’ll do in my spare time… that I, um, never have. So this year, I splurged on myself a little and bought a beautifully illustrated calendar from Alicia Dean at COOinc  for $20.00.

Yeah, I know. Not much of a SPLURGE, but it was still $20.00 that I didn’t NEED to spend. So there you go, a treat for me.

feb birds

The best part is that after I enjoy this calendar for 12 whole months, I can pick out my favorite illustrations and frame them for my house. I’m already planning to use the owl from the cover picture in my master bathroom. I’m also kind of obsessed with the birds in love for February and think they would look great added to my living room gallery wall. Oh and the cute doggie… and the bicycle… I pretty much love them all and want to wallpaper Potter with them!

So for just $20.00 I can get a beautiful calendar to look at for the year AND have at a few gorgeous illustrations for my house. Pretty great, right?

Even better, now that it’s already 10 days into January, you can find many calendars on sale. So, go check out etsy and see if you fall in love with anything!

If you’d like to check out some of Alicia Dean’s other work, you can see her etsy shop here. She also writes a blog called Gravy and Dessert where she shares some more of her artwork.

 

* All three of us are slowly but surely getting a little better each day. Thank you all so much for your support, prayers and kind words!

Source for images: the COOinc etsy listing.

No Longer the Ugly Green Bathroom

So it looks like I’m going to have to find a new name for my upstairs hall bathroom, because it is no longer ugly OR green! Well, the tub is actually still green but with the shower curtain closed you don’t see it so it totally doesn’t count.

I first showed you my ugly green bathroom in this post. It was hideous and dated and just an all-around eyesore.

Yes, that is a green sink and toilet. And yes, it’s horrible.
Of course you need a matching green tub, right?

The first thing to go was the horrid plaid wallpaper. We actually hired someone to do that at the same time as he removed some other wallpaper before we even moved in. It still looked pretty terrible afterwards, because the walls were white with random spackle marks, but honestly nothing could have made that green toilet look cool.

Last month, we finally got into the nitty-gritty of it and ripped out the shower doors, toilet, sink, medicine cabinet and lights. We added in a simple vanity and bright white toilet, which improved the look 10,000 times! We also installed a new handheld shower head and lighting fixture.

Even with a wall full of nothing, it’s so much better than the old green stuff!
Here it is with our new sink and pretty, pretty toilet!

I then had to wait a month until I had a day free to paint. So on Monday, I sent Jack off to play at his grandma’s house and unleashed my inner painting goddess – attacking both the master bedroom and the formerly ugly green bathroom.

I sanded down the walls and painted them “Gentle Sky” by Behr. I also spray painted the 80’s looking wood switchpaints with my favorite oil rubbed bronze to see if I can save them. When everything was dry, I reinstalled all the fixtures, hung a cute mirror I found for just $50, put up my new shower curtain and my fun etsy artwork.

Such a change, right?! I think it’s kind of an INSANE difference for not doing a full bathroom renovation!

Here’s the cost breakdown:

American Classics Vanity* (Home Depot): $150.00
Brushed Nickel Faucet (Home Depot): $26.00
Toilet (Home Depot): $150.00
Lighting Fixture (Home Depot): $70.00
Assorted sink and toilet installation stuff: $50.00
Mirror(Martha Stewart Brand, from Home Depot): $50.00
Art from Etsy: $35.00
Bathmat (World Market): $20.00
Behr paint:$30.00
Hand towels (Homegoods): $10.00
Shower Curtain (West Elm): $15.00

Total bathroom project: $606.00

For around $600 I got rid of that terrible ugly green bathroom, so I’m a happy, happy girl!

I hope you all are having a Happy Thanksgiving! I need to go downstairs and start cooking in a couple hours, but until then I think I’m just going to stare at my new bathroom…

 

*The vanity came with a matching mirror that just looked too small for the space, so it will be re-purposed to Jack’s room when he gets a little older.