I've been eyeing inspiration for our pantry makeover lately, and when I saw this image of Caitlin Wilson's gorgeous pantry, I knew I needed a shelving system that had pull-out drawers.
via Rue
I also knew I wanted it to be all white.
via Lonny
Our pantry was a nasty beige color that made it look so dirty that I didn't even want to put our food in there. The layout was pretty much identical to every other pantry I've had, but this color really bothered me.
The beige mixed with the yellow shelves felt old and dated and it had a weird musty smell that freaked me out. It also had plastic stick on baseboards which are just... no.
The walls got a good scrubbing and two fresh coats of white paint. We painted our living room ceilings in Behr Ultra Pure White, and used the leftover paint we had in here.
I had been planning on using the Elfa system from The Container Store, but once I started pricing it out I looked for other options. I ended up finding the Algot system from Ikea for less than $100! The Elfa system was going to be at least triple that, and since I'm weighing everything I do in the house to how much we'll get back in resale value, I decided it wasn't worth it to spend the extra money when this system would work just as well.
It took Charlie and I about an hour to put together, and would have been easier if we had the recommend suspension rail on top for spacing. We purchased one, but when we got home we realized someone had opened the hardware box and taken out two of the pieces we needed to hang it! It was a Sunday afternoon on a holiday weekend when we realized this, and you couldn't pay me to go to Ikea at that time.
We have a small guest bedroom closet that needs a major makeover, and I like this system so much I'll be purchasing another to use in there, too!
UPDATE: See our updated kitchen and pantry with it's new door in this post!
Update : you can see our new pantry and organization in this post!
I'm constantly organizing and reorganizing our apartment, and with summer coming to an end I've been in crazy mode. In my most recent project, I organized our pantry using these multi-purpose bins, stay fresh containers, and an expandable can shelf.
I also used a couple of undershelf baskets to hold dish towels and linens so they weren't taking up our precious drawer space, and put all of the extra food and doubles of items into one of my favorite striped bins.
I also got around to organizing all of my Mom's old photos by sorting and labeling them by year. This was a huge project that I've been putting off for awhile, and it feels so good to have it done. I filled up three of these photo storage containers!
I'm pretty sure I kept The Container Store in business for past two weeks!
What are some of your favorite organization projects?