When we first were planning out this third section of our kitchen facelift we had bigger plans.
The first thing was lightening up the walls, which I tackled at the start of the pandemic back in 2020.
After that it became clear that my biggest wish was for white kitchen cabinets. We landed on doing it ourselves with painting them and adding new hardware during the Summer of 2021.
Then about 1 year later, we added our breakfast table to the adjoining room in the Spring of 2022.
Through it all we've tossed and turned on what to do with this last piece of our kitchen. Even when we moved in 4 years ago we questioned how we should/could utilize this extra piece of cabinetry: Office space? Pantry? Additional storage? What sort of storage?
We thought we could gut the whole thing and install a double pantry on one half of the wall and the other half we could place a work desk. Then the idea to gut it all and have a large walk-in pantry with trash and recycling bin storage, floated around in our minds.
It's amazing to think that here we are 3 years later still sitting and pondering at this one measly section! We've also done a myriad of other home projects and home furnishings over the years:
The Nursery, the home theater, the library, the upstairs hallway and the one that started it all... the laundry room.
We have also been busy with my new role at church as well as starting the adoption process this year and one day I looked at the cabinets and then I looked at Chris and I decided that at the very least I wanted them painted to match the rest of the kitchen.
But before doing that I wanted the cabinets and drawers to all have a purpose.
The first and tallest cupboard is our pantry; filled with breakfast items, snacks and dried/canned goods. On top of that is backstock of any baking ingredients, spices or snacks.
Then we have a technology cupboard (Top Left). We store our charging station, lightbulbs and extra chords in there. Added tip is including a piece of paper with a list of which lightbulbs are needed for each room/light fixture.
Next to that is the baking cupboard (Middle), filled with all of our baking ingredients. On the end we have a craft/sensory cupboard (Top Right), which holds my personal painting projects, playdoh and other sensory buckets for future kids. I also view this last cupboard as a place our kids craft projects can be stored when they are not yet completed.
For the bottom half we have 3 "Junk Drawers" The first holds things like batteries, and label maker. The second holds pens, markers, paper clips basically office supplies. The third drawer contains my notebooks, planners and calculator. And the bottom 2 drawers on the end (Bottom Right) hold all of our children dining accessories. We want them to have access to their own cups, bowls, plates and silverware and placing them at kid-level was perfect in addition to our dining table being right there. The last cupboard (Bottom Left) is home to Loki's treat puzzles.
Now that the cupboards have purpose, and they've remained in order over a year, we ran to the hardware store and ordered primer, paint, sealing finish and new hardware. All of the details are listed in the First Part post.
It feels wonderful having a complete and cohesive kitchen! And it feels even better having it complete before baby arrives :)
