Further Into the Pantry Project

(BEWARE: This is a very picture-heavy post!)

For those of you who may recall (because I post SO OFTEN, how could you possibly remember what it is that I posted a whole two posts ago???), I decided to take on the redesigning of my pantry.  I got tired of the OMG IT'S SO WHITE, and felt I needed to repaint it.  Most of my house is all renter's white, and until I own a home, I can't just repaint the walls to fix that, so for now, I paint what is mine to mix things up.

A refresher on what the pantry USED to look like:

Picture it with boring flat white doors and handles, because I forgot to take a picture before I removed the doors.  Whoops.

A front door transformation

While waiting for paint to dry, and between chores around the house, I thought about the wreath out on my front door, and how – while I love the wreath – it can’t look very good on the door as it stands.

Front door BEFORE:

With a wreath in front of that?? Ridiculous. Messy. Uck. But the Private Residence sign is a NECESSITY.  We live on a business lot, in front of a business, with a parking lot for a front yard.  No sign = random strangers walking into my house.  (We try locking the door, but it’s an unusual lock, we have no key, and  locking means we aren't’ always able to get back in.)

I had bought a cheap picture frame at Walmart for $3 the other day while picking up paint for my pantry project and had it sitting around, but wasn’t totally sold on it just yet.  I decided I wasn’t a big fan of the color and style of the frame on the pantry, and I was struck by inspiration!!  I could remove the signs from the door!

I grabbed some scissors, removed the frame leg – the thing that can make it stand on its own – and wrote out a quick note similar to the previous, and used Gorilla Glue to adhere a strong magnet to the back of the frame, and voila!!

Front door AFTER:

MUCH much better, don’t you think??  I’ll probably manage to print something out that looks nicer later, but for now, that works just fine for me!



I linked to:

My first really big project: Tackling my pantry

I have a pantry.  We bought it when we moved into an apartment that had NO storage space.  Just a simple white particle board, two door, four shelf cabinet.

And I’m tired of the white.  It’s been white for years, it’s boring.  So I decided to change it.  I’m inspired by so many of the blogging ladies, I’m changing it up!  I decided on KILZ color Caraway Seed, a sort of dark taupe.  It’s a really long process, because the paint takes a while to dry, so this will definitely be a multi-day project.  But I do have some photos to share of the process thus far!!

Here’s my pantry Before.  Picture this with white doors – I forgot to take a picture before I removed the doors – with white plastic handles – which I might very well replace.

Here’s the fronts of the doors painted with two coats.  That’s the color, and I LOVE it!!  I painted them last night and let them dry overnight.

My snack, because everybody needs fuel for a quasi-long-term project, yes?  Yay for Costco!  (This post not sponsored by Snickers… unless they want to sponsor me!) 

Lifted the doors to paint a coat on the backside, and the bottoms of the shelves have one coat as well.  Yay!

My goal is to have this done by the end of next weekend.  I have a girlfriend coming over on Tuesday, and I’m hoping to do a big chunk of the project that day, we’ll see!

Easter Wreath

I finished my first real project!!  I'm so excited!  It is a project that's morphed in my mind through various different stages, having different ideas of how I want it to turn out.  First, it was just going to be a recreation of a wreath I saw somewhere else, a foam wreath with Spanish moss glued on it and Easter eggs glued on top of that.  But you know, I could never find any foam wreath forms!!  Granted, I've been somewhat avoiding craft stores, because I end up spending too much at them.

But today, I came across a grapevine wreath at Walmart for only $3.50!  And I was inspired.  A variation of the original wreath I had in mind, and some of these variable wreaths I've seen some of the other bloggers do, with the ability to change up the wreath for the season and holiday.  BRILLIANT.

So I brought home the wreath, grabbed some spare fabric that's about the same color as the moss, some floral wire, some silk flowers I had left over from a trip to the Dollar Tree, some ribbon, the Spanish moss, and some plastic eggs from the Dollar Tree, and had at it!

I didn't take any pictures of the process, but the wreath was originally just a bare vine wreath.  I cut out strips from the fabric and literally tied them around the wreath and cut the excess fabric.  Using my hot glue gun, I glued the moss to the fabric so that I could easily remove it later with less mess.

Then I wound the ribbon around the wreath and glued the ends together.  I made the bow using ribbon and floral wire and then secured it to the other ribbon with hot glue and kept it more firmly in place with more wire.

I tucked the flowers into place without really securing them -- though I may go back and do that later -- and the eggs had holes in them, so I just stuck the wire through the holes, wrapped it around the wreath, and voila!

The finished product:


The bow:


The back, showing the fabric tied around (holy camera flash, Batman!):


There's paint all over my fingers, I'm in the middle of repainting my pantry -- it's just a simple particleboard, two-door pantry, but I'm tired of it, so I'm changing it.  (So many craft blogs inspire me!)  Also, yes, haha, the door is labeled "Door".  I labeled several items around my house to encourage my son to read.  Yay for creativity!

Honestly, compared to so many other projects I see, it's not great, but it's my first real project, so I wanted to share!  So, I posted this at:

Trial and Error - Filing Cabinet-style

Going through and reading so many of the different crafting blogs out there, I'm struck by... jealousy?  Envy?  I don't know...

These ladies -- so many incredibly talented women! -- completely change the look and feel of their homes with a little bit of trim, a coat of paint, and more!  I'm limited by the changes I can do by the fact that we rent, though someday, I would love to own a home.  For now, though, I can only change what I have in my home.

My current project is a filing cabinet.  It's a black metal filing cabinet that I've hauled around for a few years, but never dressed up in any way, just having it around simply for its function.

I don't remember who wrote it, or if it was tweeted or posted on Facebook, but somebody yesterday said something about livening up a dull filing cabinet with some paint and/or wallpaper.  It inspired me!

So today, I took apart my filing cabinet -- it isn't fancy, just a $30 cabinet from Walmart -- and emptied it out.  Two coats of primer and one coat of satin white interior house paint later, and I have it here in my craft room, resting on flattened cardboard boxes, drying.  I've painted the handles a soft spring green, and I have a wallpaper boarder that I'm going to somehow incorporate onto it.

But now I'm concerned.  Through the priming/painting process, I've noticed that it's nicked/scratched easily, exposing the black metal underneath.  I can't help but wonder if I should have perhaps sanded first?

I put a layer of Mod Podge over it, hoping to make it stronger, but I really don't think that has made any difference, and I'm too afraid to try it to find out.

Am I right?  Should I have sanded first?  I don't know... I guess I'll just have to find out.  Trial and error?  Fortunately, it doesn't take too much paint and primer to do this.  Just all of one afternoon.