TV Cabinets turned Kitchen Pantries

Well...I guess my procrastination is at an all time high, but I'm back! So much has changed since the last few things I said I'd post about that I'd never be able to catch back up if I start with any of that! One of the biggest changes is that Heather is a mom to the smartest and cutest (and energetic!) little 2 year old! So you can almost always assume that Sarah is writing these posts now! ;)

We both still do quite a bit of crafting, but most of what I work on these days is home improvement or home decor projects (spoiler alert: I bought my first house! Go me!) So the majority of my posts and pictures will probably be home projects!

So, this is a project from a couple of years ago, but it's one of those projects that I still get excited to tell people about, so here goes...

One thing I wasn't crazy about in my house was there was no built in pantry and extremely limited cabinet space...and I'm a gal who likes to eat! The people who lived here before used shelving in the laundry room for food storage, but I wanted to use that for cleaning supplies (plus, why travel back and forth between two rooms when you can keep your cookies and milk 10 ft from each other? Am I right?!) 

So, I price checked. Stand alone pantries that I liked were around $200-400+. Before buying one, Heather and I went to a big flea market to see if I could find one for a little less. I set a budget at $250. After being outside in July all day, finding several pantries that were just over budget or were in pretty rough condition, I was feeling defeated. Then we saw them...Two outdated TV cabinets, in pretty good condition but probably not anything someone would want to bring into their house in this decade. Naturally, I asked what the price was. The lady said, "I'll take 20 if you take both of them." I tried to act really nonchalant like that was a fair price and I wasn't planning on paying a penny more (as I stuffed $230 back into my pockets). Then she made a couple of her family members load them into the truck, which probably would have been equivalent to $20 in labor, so I practically got them for free. ;)

Here they were...don't judge me for what I was willing to pay...I saw potential, ok?!

I had just used the Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations kit in my kitchen and had some left over, so I decided to use it on my new pantries! (I adore this kit by the way! It is time consuming, but I liked the result and they still look great over 3 years later!)

I just used latex paint for the inside... it is actually paint left over from my living room walls (maybe too bright for a lot of people, but that's why they don't live in my house! Lol!). Then I spray painted the handles. 

I grabbed some organizational things from the Container Store to make them more pantry-like and made one pantry for baking and the other for cooking meals. Eventually, I'd like to get more storage and organize them better, but ain't nobody got time for that right now.

In the drawers of the cooking pantry, I put things like rice and pasta. In the baking pantry, I put my entertaining stuff and stuff that makes me say, "where'd that come from?" Please tell me other people have that problem...

Then, the open areas would be super cute to put some decor or pretty stuff in, but like I said, I have a major lack of space in my kitchen, so I tried to use every bit of space I had available! My appliances fought it out for the space...Toaster oven and Instant Pot were the victors (My little red Crock-Pot was a close 3rd).




I also threw a nail into a hole that was already in the side of one of the pantries (at $20 I can't complain!) so I could hang an apron up. Cute and functional!

Then, here's probably my favorite thing about my "pantries"...the bottom pieces were the main areas that were a little beat up (you can see in the "before" picture). I ripped them out and now, Roomba has a perfect home where he is completely hidden! (No offense, Roomba, I still love you!). 

Well, I'm dreaming of flea markets now and how I need to search for more treasures, so that's all for today!

A Peek Inside Our Craft Room!

A little over a year ago, Heather and I decided we wanted to live closer to her school and my work, so we moved out of our parents' house and into our own place. We both figured living together would be a pretty smart move because our work and school were close and let's be honest, aside from a few punches to the arm and kicks to the face (true story), the 22 years we've lived together have been pretty calm and free of serious violence or drama ;).

So when we started our search for a place, we were looking at very small (cheap) two bedroom apartments. Then, our mom told us that we would have to move all of our craft supplies out of her house...that changed everything. We knew we would have to have a third room to house all of our precious stuff (and believe me, I'm NOT complaining about that! ;) ). 

We completely lucked out. We found an awesome house for rent, in a perfect location, with the most flexible and understanding landlords. And the second we saw the third bedroom, we both knew it was meant to be. It looked like it was already set up for a craft room!

So here are some pictures of our craft room--my favorite room ever. 

This is what you see right when you walk in the door...our tutu lamp! My goal is for the entire lamp to be tutus! And you can see Scamper in her Barbie shirt at the bottom of the picture ;)

Right next to our tutu lamp we have shoe storage door hangers on each closet door. In those we conveniently have strips of tulle cut to the different lengths we make our tutus (Ah, this is confirming that we are official NERDS! lol!)

In between the doors, we have pegboard with the things we use most often at the top. And then we added some cute unopened knick knacks we didn't have any other place for...mainly to make us feel like we were shopping when picking things out ;)

These shelves were perfect for all of our scrapbooking/stamping/etc. supplies! Like I said, I think this room was meant to be a craft room!

This purple drawer set fits perfectly underneath our shelves...again, meant to be a craft room! It's probably one of my favorite things in our room because it holds all of my Cricut stuff...I take all of the booklets out of the Cricut cases because I think it makes it easier to look through them quickly for ideas!

When we first moved in, we thought this one badly painted purple wall (well, not even wall, just a section of the wall!) was totally weird and ugly...BUT then we realized it was the perfect length for ribbon holders! As you can see, we don't always roll the ribbons all the way up when we're finished...don't judge.

Heather had this idea of using magnet boards and magnetic canisters from Ikea to put all of our brads and other opened knick knacks in directly above our work space. This way, we can see little embellishments that we can add to projects that otherwise we probably would have forgotten we had!

This fits perfectly underneath the table we work at, which is great because it holds all the main things we need for anything, like cutting tools, adhesives, writing tools, glitter, and buttons!

This is my favorite of those drawers...no explanation needed ;)

One more of my favorite storage ideas that we came up with...

It's hard to see, but we used one of the under the bed long drawers and hot glued plastic in it to create drawer dividers for all of our pretty flowers!

And our craft room wouldn't be complete without...

 

Sister pictures!...and a ballerina pig! 

Sadly, we didn't make these cute frames...they came from Hobby Lobby!



So that is our craft room (or the majority of it anyway!)! I hope y'all enjoyed it!

Have a fun and happy Easter, and don't forget why we celebrate!

-Sarah