Adding on a Walk-in Pantry

This pantry used to be a solid wall in our laundry room just behind the kitchen. Off of the laundry room (just to the left) there is an office and to the right is a small half bathroom. In the office was a shallow cabinet for office supplies. But we just never used it. It had a bunch of junk stored in it and paper. In the bathroom there was also a cabinet.We stored linens in there. But it wasn’t used to it’s capacity. We always thought a better design for this house would have been to nix the 2 shallow closets in the 2 rooms and instead have a walk in pantry off of the kitchen. So one day John decided to do it himself.



This is the door,  that used to be the wall,  that was knocked out by a saws-all,  to make the cool Pantry that John built.



Here’s the office wall redo…it used to be a closet!

The first thing he did was take the doors off the 2 closets in the 2 rooms. Then he took all the shelving down from the closets and knocked out the walls in between the closets. So there was a see through huge hole between the bathroom and the office. Kind of funny to go to the bathroom in there while somebody was working on the computers. Luckily this project only took a couple of weeks in John’s spare time. 😀

He got out his saws-all reciprocating saw, and started by cutting a hole into the laundry room wall to see how much space he’d now have to work with. He went and bought 2 by 4s to make a frame for the doorway, and bought a new small width door and moldings for around the door. Then he put in a light fixture. He used the laundry room switch so both lights go on with one flip of a switch. He used green low voltage lighting so it never gets all hot in there.



And this used to be a wall, no door, no moldings and now it’s a nice and messy pantry! Some day I’ll clean it up and reorganize it…






Then he drywalled the huge holes in the walls from removing the doors and closets. Then he mudded them and sanded them smooth and on one side, the bathroom side he put a chair rail and beadboard in white. I finished it off with a vinyl scratch on saying. It turned out cute. We added a piece of granite to the top of the old cabinet I had painted dark brown. We got the granite from Tile Outlet in Draper. The lady there sold us a 2nd that we could use for both of our smaller bathrooms for about $250 bucks. And each bathroom only cost about $100 bucks to install.  So cheap!  Then we bought a new marble vessel sink from Stone Depot in Salt Lake. They also have good deals there on granite. They did our kitchen granite. John added green sea glass backsplash tiles to it. It took us a while to decide on green glass. There were so many pretty options! This project only took us a few weeks too. On the other side, the office side, he added a piece of chair rail and I still haven’t painted it, being the procrastinators that I am.

Brucie, hanging tough during the office remodel…he’s got a rough life… We added a ceiling fan to the office… Repainted the crown moldings and walls… pulled up the carpet and put in laminate wood flooring… here’s John, working on the computer…The office is always so neat…

I still have a lot to do in the office.  It’s all drywalled in but not painted on the chair rail or below.  What did I tell you about running out of steam? I’ll finish all these loose ends this summer. But the bathroom turned out nice.

I always liked this song…from Aerosmith…



We got a real deal on this marble sink, only $60 bucks! Then I put up a purchased brown metal beaded mirror



I painted the little box on the toilet I found at a garage sale and made a plant arrangement (fake plants of course) and the green matted nature pictures (so pretty!)



I got this glass candle fixture for $5.00 at Down Home East What a deal!  Fake plant below, I kill anything real!


Then John had to look inside this gaping hole and start to design a pantry out of it. First he tiled the floor and continued it onto the laundry room and the small half bath. He had never done a tile floor before but he said it turned out pretty easy. It’s kind of like a puzzle.

We used large 16 inch tiles so it went pretty fast with the purchase of a tile cutter. It was noisy but I think he enjoyed tiling. These 3 projects were the first we completed in the remodel. We started these in the spring of 2009. It was messy and noisy, but they went pretty fast. We were done in about a month, I think.


John tiled the pantry, laundry room and 1/2 bath with this porcelain tile.

 The Laundry room we just repainted and tiled the floor. Then we ordered a new washer and dryer in red. The ½ bath behind the kitchen we painted green and had new tile, new fixtures, lighting and the marble vessel sink and the granite countertop. We also added white beadboard and chair rail. It is so pretty. All the fixtures are those brown oil rubbed bronze finish. I love those so I chose them most often in the remodel.



The beadboard added a lot…and to think that this used to be a closet! Amazing!




We got the vessel sink in green marble from Stone Depot in SLC, the oil rubbed bronze sink fixture from Overstock.com for about $120.00. John did the green glass backsplash….


While I painted walls and cabinets and ceilings and laundry room and den, basically painted the entire summer long, John was busy doing the he-man work. He drywalled the insides of the pantry and used the old shelving from the 2 demolished closets. We decided on just a U shape of shelves as you walk in with 5 levels. He joined boards together with bisquits. He would come and get me to ask my preference on things, depth of shelving, how many shelves, how low to the ground to start the first shelf, etc. It was fun to see it coming together.



This used to be just a gaping hole between the small closets


The sad part is that it was so nicely organized when we first got it all done. All my fine china was up top, then there were canned goods, then linens, then baskets on the bottom full of oddball things. Then we decided to start the kitchen remodel. So I had to take everything that was in the kitchen cabinets, and squish them into the new pantry while the remodel went on. So it has not completely recovered. I need a day of just redoing the organization cuz it’s kind of a mess in there. But it is wonderful to now have so much more space. Tomorrow I’ll post how we did the laundry room and office. Yay Johnny. You are becoming quite the cool carpenter dude. :O