Cozy House Chronicles (Part I): How to DIY a Pantry...

Well, it's Wednesday again and I for one am looking forward to the weekend!  Mostly because then it'll be closer to next weekend when I go on my scrapbooking retreat!!!  I'm so excited; I haven't been to a scrapbooking retreat since March 2013 when I went to Atlanta. So I am really looking forward to going and reconnecting with some of my online crafting friends.  

I'm also looking forward to the weekend because I have re-instituted the "Family Fall Outing." That's right.  For many years, mostly when the kids were younger, we did a lot of family outings:  pumpkin patch or apple picking in the fall, zoo lights and Santa visits in the winter, museums in the spring and a whole myriad of things over the summer.  But, then the kids start growing up ant they're busy and not so much interested in those types of activities anymore.  So I started drafting my other babies to go with and that worked until they moved across the country last year.  So no outings last year.  That didn't make me a happy camper, so I've decided we're going to the apple orchard this Sunday after church.  And so what if the kids think they are too big for it?  Anyone familiar with the movie "Georgia Rule?" Yep - Mommy Rule.  Translation:  Ya gotta go (and pose for pictures with the least amount of snarkiness and sarcasm your tween and teen selves can muster). Stay tuned...

So onto Part I of the Cozy House Chronicles.  So as I've said before, with this move, our family downsized to a house about a third of the size of our last one, and less than half of the one before that.  So it's a serious downsize!  But you know what?  I don't miss it, well, most of it anyway.  I do miss my bathroom, my craft room/office, my closet, and my pantry. The pantry is the subject of today's post - because this house didn't have one and with a smaller kitchen, I was really stumped on what to do with the dry goods (all of which, along with canned goods, extra spices as well as rarely used small appliances, were stored in the pantry at the old house).  So ta-da:  my new pantry! 

My new pantry!  Still needs painting and labels,
but I love it!

While the cozy house didn't have a pantry, it did have two hall closets, one of which is just across from the kitchen.  It was this closet that was designated for reincarnation as a DIY pantry.  Here is a photo of the plain, boring closet before (just a regular closet, with a single rod and a shelf), nothing exciting:

Regular ole closet, nothing to see here!

I used this opportunity to "cute up" the pantry; time to put some of those Pins I love on Pinterest to work!  I told you a few weeks ago that I went to Dollar Tree and purchased an assortment of baskets and other containers in fall/harvest red- those containers were used to organize/categorize food in the soon to be pantry as well as within some of the kitchen cabinets. Here's a breakdown of how I used the various sized baskets and bins to store and organize dry goods.  *Note, it was trial and error; I wasn't sure what was going to fit where, so a lot of back and forth to the various Dollar Tree stores in the area made it happen. There are a lot of pictures, as you will see.  

So first, the various containers and what they house:

Salad Dressings and condiments

Herbal tea collection

Jello, pudding and nutri-grain bars

Cracker containers (these came from Dollar General)

Extra snacks (pudding, fruit cups, applesauce, trail mix)

Crackers:  graham, ritz, club, snack 

Baking mixes (we usually don't have this many, but the extra was
purchased for a RMH project that we didn't make it to...)

Oatmeal

Pancake mix, syrup and grits

Noodles!

Side Dishes (pastas & potatoes)

Dry beans

Powdered drink mix, freeze pops

Soup mixes

Foil, storage bags, etc.

Rice Sides

Canned Chicken and Salmon

Sugar

More tea!

Light bulbs

Whew!  That's a lot of containers, I know (and I think I missed a few).  But, it will all make sense in a minute.  I borrowed a practice that I use in my craft room storage - whenever possible, I got rid of the boxes that the came in because they tend to be bulky and take up too much space.  

So onto the closet transformation.  First, the rod was removed, and three shelves were added.  The shelves were cut from particle board from Home Depot, which is relatively inexpensive and perfect for this project.  Shelf supports were cut from wood, also from Home Depot.  Now for the (un)finished product... I say unfinished because I haven't made it "cute" yet - painted the shelving or labeled the containers yet (still unpacking my craft supplies, so it will be totally done soon).  So I put everything where it was going to go to a) make sure that it all fit and b) to get those containers of food off of the kitchen floor!  So without further ado, here's the new DIY pantry (overlook the ugly, unpainted particle board - that's just a temporary situation...):

Top shelf is the original shelf that was already in the closet;
shelf below it was added

Lower two shelves (also added my airtight canisters)

Pantry floor

  I was even able to hang my aprons on the inside of the bi-fold door:

And there you have it - a DIY Pantry!!!  Once I get the shelves painted and the containers labeled, it will look as if it was always that way.  I was very pleased that everything fit; I didn't do any pre-measuring to make sure the containers would fit and all of that - I just bought them, made sure the food fit and crossed my fingers that they would fit on the shelves once completed.  All in alll, I think it turned out to be a successful DIY home improvement project in that it created storage.  Gotta love inspiration from Pinterest! 

Now of course I did no woodworking, so shout out to Urban Dude for assuming the role of Handy Andy in this here little project (managed by yours truly, of course!).  I have a few other similar projects for inside the house (converting the other teeny, tiny hall closet into my shoe closet, as well as adding some shelving to the craft room closet).  In the name of organization/decor/storage, I will be sharing other stories/projects in the Cozy House Chronicles as I work to turn it into our cozy little home!!!    So stay tuned!

So how about you - any other DIYers brave the challenge of creating more storage space/becoming more organized in your own homes?  If so, care to share?  You know the drill - Holla @ Darvi!  Be Blessed!

Wait, not saying goodbye just yet.  It doesn't feel right to end this post without some word of encouragement, so here you go:

"God changes caterpillars into butterflies, sand into pearls, 

and coal into diamonds using Time and Pressure.  

He's working on YOU too!"  - Rick Warren 

Hope that brightens someone's day!  I'm signing off for real this time, but Holla @ Darvi with your favorite DIY home projects.  We are getting to the holidays and I will be sharing crafts and holiday decor soon - it's my second favorite time of the year!  What's the first?  Why, my birthday, of course!  Be Blessed, everyone!!!

See, what had happened was...

Happy Monday! Hope everyone had an amazing week and a half!

So yeah, I know I was supposed to post two Fridays ago, but it didn't happen.  Then Monday didn't happen. Nor did Wednesday.  Thought this post would be ready for Friday, but yea, about that.  Life happened...

Actually, part of it is due to unpacking woes, part is due to adjusting to new schedules, and the rest is the peril of not pre-writing.  But I will do better, promise!

Anyway, this past weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to share in the 10-year wedding anniversary celebration of my Sigma daughter (one of) and her husband.  They are such a beautiful couple and it was a joy to be a part of their celebration.  So to Mr. and Mrs. Sean Gallardo, I salute you and your story, which is a testimony of the power of love (and its longevity), and keep inspiring those young people on your youth ministry! Congratulations again!!!  

I also had the opportunity to prepare a "thank you" meal in honor of one of my childhood friends who assisted with the move (even though he had to work) on two days.  He wouldn't take any money from me for his time, but he did agree to a home cooked meal, so I prepared a Sunday Dinner in his honor:  turkey wings and dressing, collard greens and macaroni and cheese!  We all enjoyed a great time fellowshipping together (and I think I followed the conversation about fantasy football?).  Thank you again, Alan Scott, for being a true friend!

So, as often happens when I get ready to write, I had one thing in mind but I've been led to write about something else.  And as often happens, these topics are born out of things going on in my world, or inspiration (or conviction) from my pastor's sermons - this is no exception.

My church, Victory Apostolic Church in Matteson, is launching a huge two-year capital campaign to secure funds to make improvements to the church's campus. In preparation for the launch, yesterday Pastor Singleton spoke on the "The Power of Unity."  The purpose of the sermon (as I gathered it) was to begin the process of unifying the church in thought and action for this campaign.  The text came from Judges 6:1-6. So here are my notations on yesterday's sermon:

If you aren't familiar with the book of Judges, it is an Old Testament book and covers the time when Israel had no kings, only judges.  Pastor Singleton said that the theme of the book of Judges is human failure and divine grace.  I don't know about you, but that sounds like good news to me!  

At that time, the Israelites were living lawless basically, and doing whatever they wanted, which essentially amounted to living outside of God's will.  I think we all know a thing or two about that... but guess what?  While you can do whatever you want, you'll never get what you want without living in obedience to God!  (Don't you love these little nuggets my pastor puts in his sermons???)  Ouch.  See James 1:16-17:  blessings come from God above.  Because the Israelites were disobedient, God stepped back and let them suffer the consequences of their actions and allowed them to live a life without Him.  Let's just say that it wasn't pretty!  And so when it got really tough, they cried out to God and He heard them. Let's put a pin right there!  Despite their abandonment of Him, He still heard their despair and responded.  Isn't that a good thing to know?  I am a witness that even when you are disobedient to what you know is God's will, when you find yourself in trouble (whether due to your own actions or God has stepped back or He's trying to get your attention), when you cry out to Him, He will respond!

In this part of Judges, God raised Gideon to deliver the people.  So the story goes, Gideon took an army of 32,000 with him to battle the vast armies that were constantly attacking them.  God told Gideon that he had too many men.  God make him send away all of the men who were afraid.  So 22,000 left.  Say what?  Know this:  fear is an immobilizer.  If people are fearful, they won't be able to act when the heat is on.  Note that in Revelation 21:6-8 the fearful won't be in the number.  Third note - there are some people you will have to get rid of to go with God.  I'll just sit that right there... 

But God told Gideon that the 10,000 men he had left was still too many.  What the what??? So the next group to go were the stupid (I promise I didn't make that up, Pastor said that yesterday).  Don't believe him?  See for yourself:  Judges 7:4-6.  There's a whole story there about the men who lapped water like a dog (leaving themselves exposed to the enemy) as opposed to the ones who used their hands as a cup to hold the water (allowing them to be on alert while they drank).  After they were gone, Gideon was left with a whopping 300 men. If you're familiar with Gideon's story, you know that Gideon and his 300 men were victorious because of their unified faith that God would be faithful to His word and that they would be victorious!

So as I see it, we are left with two of my favorite subjects and the underlying theme of the message/passages:  faith and obedience.  So per Pastor Singleton, here it is in a nutshell:

1) you don't need to know how HE is going to do something, you just have to be comfortable that the Lord  will do it!  

2) victory starts with obedience to God!

My takeaways for the week?  Obedience to God always yields a greater reward than trying to do things your own way (sounds familiar, right?).  Faith is how you truly get to the next level.  When you are facing those giants in your life and you don't know how you will slay them, your job is to pray about it, then step back and let God handle it, knowing completely that He will.  *you can pause for a praise break now..."

What am I saying?  Same things I've been saying:  listen and be obedient to what you are being told to do and no matter what it looks like on the surface, believe that God is taking care of it.  That's it, that's all.  Easy to say, hard to do.  Work in progress...

Anyhoo, I promised that we'd talk about the cozy house but guess what?  I'm not ready yet! But I did snap a photo of the outside of the house for ya (excuse the overgrown bushes and crazy looking landscaping; I doubt those will be groomed before spring given the shift in our local weather.  Read:  IT'S COLD!)  But, here's the cozy house:

It's cute, right??? The inside is coming along; my storage challenges are immense, but I'm making it work!  Still a lot of unpacking to do, but we'll get her done!  

So until next time, have an awesome week!  Holla @ Darvi- I've missed you!  Be blessed!!!