As I may have mentioned (um, over and over and over again) (sorry about that btw…) I have a tiny little kitchen (read more about that here!) – it’s cute, it’s quite functional (given its overall tiny-ness), it’s a lovely shade of gray (Stonington Gray, I adore you!), and I rather like it (flaws and all.) But it’s small, with minimal cupboard space (people in the 1940s apparently had waaay less stuff than I do now) (and, well, I’m doubting they were looking for a place to store their crockpot and blender and a rarely-used panini press.) (Or an 8kg bag of cat food, for that matter.)
A few days back, my friend Shawn (who has his own blog called the Olde Stone House) (hi Shawn!) was telling (er, texting) me about how super excited he was about his new pantry (which he just posted about here yesterday – great minds think alike, apparently!) and mid-jealousy (he has an entire room designated for pretty pantryness) (and an entire bedroom newly redesigned as one huge walk-in closet [not at all related to this topic, but also equally envy-inciting]) I realized that I DO kinda have a pantry of my own. It’s not very big (but, well, nothing in this house is, really) and it doesn’t really have its own designated space, or a door for that matter, but it could indeed be considered pantry-ish. My goal this weekend? Make ‘er pretty. :)
My inspiration? This pic (found while hanging out with the fine folk at Pinterest the other day) from Kristine at The Painted Hive:
Lovely labelled canisters via The Painted Hive
I’ve gotta be honest: I had a full-fledged eureka moment when I found this image. The sameness of all the canisters makes everything collectively look so perfect together. I know that this is likely lesson #1a in Decorating 101, but as a pantry-perfecting principle it was a near-epiphany.
So (of course) off I went to ikea to find me some canisters. And canisters I found! (And, even better, they were very inexpensive – only $2-3-ish each!) I bought the SLOM series of jars, which are actually the same canisters in my inspiration image (giving me much hope that my puny pantry could indeed look lovely!)
And so (insert big reveal here) I present my befores and afters. I haven’t yet labeled my jars (I’m not sure if the transfer labels Kristine used for her pretty canisters are available here in Canada, but a trip to Michaels to see what they can offer me might be in order!) which means that while I know what’s in my jars, no one else does LOL. Absolutely fine for me, and likely fine for Sweetie even, but not so great for future guests looking to add sugar to their coffee.
Befores…
Ack! Ugly floor alert! Ugly floor alert!
From this angle it doesn't look terrible I suppose, but the hodge-podge of jars makes it just a little cluttered non?
And presenting my afters…
All tidied up (just don't look at the floor)
Arborio and lentils and couscous oh my
Uniform loveliness :)
Amazing what a little uniformity can do to tidy things up! OK… It’s not a major “wow! What a crazy difference! Your house is now complete” kinda moment, but I think everything just looks a little more deliberate and organized now. Which makes me happy. :) I ran out of jars, so I’ve still got more to add (an excuse for another trip to ikea!) and if I get around to adding labels, I’ll post pics to show that too.
All in all, though, it’s not a bad quick little pantry project for a Saturday afternoon!
PS – For future reference for future guests, the sugar in the jar next to the coffee, top shelf, second jar from the right. :)
