Creating a Pantry Out of Nowhere

A few weeks ago, Ke'o and I were driving in a car somewhere doing who knows what... At some point, we had a conversation that played out a little something like this:

     Ke'o: "You know, I really love that our backyard has a fence now."

     Rye: "Great! I'm glad you like it."

     Ke'o: "And I really love our house in general."

     Rye: (smiles) "I like it too, Babe."

     Ke'o: "...there's only one thing I wish I could change."

     (Rye's smile quickly fades as he wonders what on earth Ke'o will say next.)

     Ke'o: "I wish we had more storage in our kitchen. Or a pantry. Anything that helps reduce the clutter in our cabinets."

     Rye: "Yeah, that would be nice, wouldn't it?"

     (About 30 seconds go by as the wheels inside Rye's head are turning at an increasingly high speed.)

     Rye: (in an optimistic tone) "You know, I think I may have an idea..."

And that my friends, is how I got the idea to create a pantry out of nowhere...

Our kitchen/dining area is small. In fact, before we bought the house, that was my biggest reservation about the place.

So to build a true pantry was out of the question.

Adding cabinets or a storage unit of any kind would have seemed misplaced.

My options were definitely limited. But there was one area that I had managed to overlook for the past two years. A place I had never thought of until my conversation with Ke'o:

...and it's not far from our kitchen.

The mystery doors behind our dining room table.

So what exactly is behind Door #1? Well, that would be our laundry closet. And it wasn't much to look at...

BEFORE

But look closer, and you'll notice the potential that I finally saw after so much time. It had only two shelves! Look at all that wall space that was going to waste!

All I needed was a quick trip to Lowe's for comparable shelving and less than two hours of an evening to measure, drill, and hang.

It was one of the easier home improvement projects I've conquered...

AFTER

Now our makeshift pantry has more storage than we know what to do with!... for now.

I certainly won't win any awards for this pantry project, but it's fun to talk about nonetheless. Plus - all my home improvement projects seem to be popular with the Facebook folks.

So I hope you enjoyed it!