A major improvement to our pantry (cupboard)

This cupboard was probably the one most needing a major clean-out.  This before is more than a year old, it didn't look this bad before I painted it but it wasn't that much better.  It's a mess.  I know it was a mess.  One of the small things I don't like about our house is the lack of a pantry.  It's pretty high on my list of "musts" for our next house (along with a master bathroom, 4 bedrooms, and white trim).  I don't need a walk-in pantry but even just a dedicated cupboard would be amazing.  This cupboard holds most of our non-refrigerated food upstairs.  We also have a tub in the basement for things like pasta or crackers that we will use soon but not immediately.  I'm a stickler for not stocking up on most things because space and grocery budget.

I painted the end of this cupboard when working on the one it connects with the month before I painted this one (which was allllll the way back in September).  It looks like this, but with more ugly, old contact paper for a few weeks:

Normal process: removing old contact paper (I think I've gotten better at that after I've done so many??), clean it, prime it, paint it.  Takes a few days and I hate having the contents all over the dining table the most of anything.  It's definitely motivation to get these done!  Also, they were ugly.

The reason it took me a whole 6 months to share this one is because of spice storage.  We have a lot of spices.  To help, Matt built me two spice racks and a spinning spice rack, all from scrap wood!  Hooray for handy husbands.  These hang inside one of the doors and hold our most used spices and popcorn salt (very important here!):

And the other holds almost everything else.  We bought a lazy susan swivel plate at Lowes and I guess did have to buy the dowel rods too.  Less than $10 to make this which, since it was custom, fit our space better than a more expensive generic one we used briefly..

Super original spice storage, I know, but it certainly beats the cut up shoebox I used for years!

This cupboard also holds pretty much all our opened food: baking supplies, spices, raisins, peanut butter, honey, oils, snacks, etc.  I didn't intend to decant everything but somehow that's gradually happened and I really like emptying the boxes and bags into their designated containers after a grocery run.  Stores better, looks better.   Easy to see what we are low on.

I stocked up on glass jars on one of Hobby Lobby's frequent 50% glass sales.  Those were all around $3.  I have various other ones and use some blue Mason jars too that my sister helpfully passes on when she comes across them (she claims she doesn't care about the color which I find CRAZY.  Everything is better in blue!  Although, I don't use my blue Mason jars for canning, they are just too pretty.).  I was, perhaps, a little too excited about decanting and reorganizing this cupboard once the painting was done.

Now we are left with this which is tons better than where we started.  So much brighter and cleaner and prettier!  

While I was working on kitchen things I also hung some Command hooks inside a shockingly bare cupboard door to hang my measuring cups and spoons and mixer beaters.  I now have an almost completely empty drawer in the kitchen and I don't know what to do with it!  This is also strangely exciting.

 A good before and after:

And that finishes up my crazy "let's paint inside all the upper kitchen cupboards" project!!  YAY!  I still haven't touched the drawers (8) and lower cupboards (3) though and keep debating if I should.  (I think we all know the answer to that is yes, I definitely will paint them at some point and yes, I will most definitely bore you with posts and pictures about it.)  Taken some paint and time but I'm so glad I did it!  Proof that wood can look SO. MUCH. BETTER. painted white.  (Not at all referring to our bedroom trim.  NOT. AT. ALL.)
 
Kitchen cleaning cupboard
Office closets
Office cupboard
Kitchen dishes cupboard
Kitchen cupboard over the stove
Baking cupboard
Upper cabinets (holiday dishes)
Alcohol cabinet