We did a kitchen remodel and got rid of most of our cabinetry; I wanted the living-room and kitchen to look open. In doing so though, I lost storage space…….more of a reason to add a pantry!!! Underneath our staircase, we have a giant walk in closet. We once utilized this closet space by putting up a closet pole for hanging up jackets and for storing pretty much anything that didn’t have a home. A pantry sounded so much better!! I mean, why not have a pantry AND a closet, opposed to just having a closet.

{I’m so mad at myself, I was so eager to get my Pantry done, up and usable, that I don’t recall getting any good pictures of how it looked prior to the Pantry. I’m still on the hunt for better pictures, until then, take a look at that large, awkward wall behind my son. NOW there’s a Beautiful Pantry door there leading to a much needed storage space for Kitchen essentials such as food and other kitchen items that need a home.}

My husband and father in law framed off a mid section to divide the new pantry and the part of the existing closet that we wanted to remain as a closet. Within the original closet that we had, there was only one light and one light switch; we faced a decision on which room we wanted to have the light. We didn’t want to spend the money on an electrician to split the one light off of to make two, so we did with what we had. We figured we would use the pantry much more than we would use the closet, because of that we moved the light switch over to the pantry side and luckily the light fixture was already in the new pantry area. But, now we don’t have any lighting on the closet side. On the pantry side, we decided to have power for miscellaneous items so we needed an outlet. After deciding where we wanted to put the new pantry door, we realized we would be removing one of our kitchen outlets, which worked in our favor! With that existing outlet, we flipped it into the pantry. Now that we have power in the pantry, I have something to work with. After sheet rocking and texturing the wall we just built that now divides the two rooms, I drilled a hole through the wall and ran an extension cord from the pantry side and into the closet. I bought a really cute light from Amazon that is intended for hanging, it has a dial that adjusts the brightness of the light. The one thing I will say I am a little annoyed with, is the dial doesn’t have a switch as well. Not that it is a huge deal, but there are times where I would like to just flip the switch and be done. I do enjoy the adjustable brightness though…. Amazon had a ton of these particular lights for sale, I just wasn’t aware of what to look for…..but now that you know, you can avoid any and all annoyances. With the cute hanging light I purchased, I plugged that into the extension cord and TA-DA….. light in the closet again! I stapled the light fixture to the ceiling and ran the on and off dial to the right of the closet entrance where a normal light switch would have been. I covered the cord up with wiremold, so it doesn’t look that funky. A wiremold is a white plastic cover that hides the wires and makes it kind of blend into the wall-less noticeable.

So, I now have the wall built that divides the two rooms up and lighting in both rooms, but how did I get access to get into the Pantry from the kitchen? Well, we obviously thought this all out prior to cutting holes in our walls so before you start your project, have a plan!!! We wanted the pantry access to be within the kitchen, so we placed the door in the kitchen, pretty simple, right? We ordered our pantry door from Modesto Door and Window. Pantry doors usually run smaller than your typical sized doors so keep that in mind when shopping for a pantry door. If you are creating an area for a new door altogether, you don’t necessarily need to stay with your average pantry door size. You don’t have to order a door from a store that specializes only in doors, you can get a pantry door from Home Depot or Lowe’s as well. Prior to starting this project, we had to make sure that where we wanted the door for the pantry room, it didn’t run into any beams, horizontally-that would have been a problem because those are for structural purposes. The beams that run up and down are put in place to support the second story, or ceiling if you don’t live in a two story. With the dimensions in mind, before getting the door, my husband had to framed off where we wanted the door and then he started cutting. Take note that this process is super, super messy and dust gets EVERYWHERE! Cover your furniture and any/everything else possible. We ordered a prehung door that came with the frame. Prehung means its ready to install the hardware – the hinges and the door knob, it’s also usually primed and ready to paint. If it is not prehung, you will need a jig to get it hardware ready. After cutting the GIANT hole in our kitchen wall to pretty much perfectly hug the new door, we placed the door frame into it’s new home and framed it off. We chose to purchase the hardware separately, it’s usually way cheaper to do it this way, we bought our hinges and door knob from Home Depot. After hanging the door, I painted it and attached the new door knob. Naturally, at this point, I had to label my pantry door, Pantry! So…..I bought a simple cute little wreath from Hobby Lobby and a plaque from Target that reads, PANTRY, and zip tied the plaque to the wreath and hung it on my new door.

At this point of the project, you get to design how you want the inside to look like. Now, I really wanted beautiful stained wood and metal lip brackets for my shelves, but with the money that I had left to work with, we went with 70″ white twin track upright poles and 11.5″ twin track brackets to shelf white laminated wooden shelves. (All from Home Depot) We did away with our oven range microwave, so we put a little microwave in our pantry along with my espresso maker and coffee maker; you can store anything you’d like in your new pantry, depending on the size you have to work with. Later on down the road, when we have a few extra dollars, I plan to get the shelves that I originally wanted!! I think that’s pretty much it, I hope you enjoyed this and got the desired information needed to complete your very own pantry!!! {Make it pretty to the T}