a pantry party.

Yes, my name is Eryn, and yes, I think pantry parties are the best. Sue me. You may have noticed, however, that I have yet to blog about our new pantry in our nueva casita. I initially showed you our pantry in our apartment here, but I've been mum on the subject since. The reason? Not much has really changed. Other than being a bit wider, our pantry in the house was quite similar to the one in the apartment. Same storage containers, same labels, same overall layout, blah-blibby-blah-blee-blah.

So let's take a couple of quick notes. Yes. That is a microwave, and yes, it's in the pantry, and yes, we made the conscious decision to have it there. The previous owners installed the microwave in the pantry, and at first, I wanted to send them to the asylum. I mean, who in the world puts a microwave in the pantry?! But now that we're here, I absolutely love it. No microwave sitting massively on the counter or taking up any of my precious cabinet space. Perhaps it was I that should have been sent to the asylum for judging the other owners. Previous casita owners: 1. Eryn: 0. Lesson learned.

Other than the microwave, I would say about 75% of the pantry was fairly organized. The middle section of shelves were well labeled, container-ed, and functioned efficiently. The very top shelf and floor, however were nightmares. The top shelf was a tragic collection of spare containers, bulky cookware, and bulk canned goods:

While the floor was a grotesque collection of more bulk items and a sad reminder that we need to buy higher quality food for the pooch:

While the middle shelves and bins needed a bit of sprucing and pruning, my main areas of attack for this project were the top and bottom shelves of our pantry. I also wanted to figure out a way to move my less frequently used muffin tins, pizza stones, cooling racks, etc. from underneath the oven to the pantry so that my cookie sheets are easier to access every night. Up until this point, all semi-flat bakeware had been stored in the drawer underneath my oven:

I started the project by taking absolutely everything out of the top and bottom shelves, and sweeping the floor in the pantry (a completely disgusting process, unfortunately).

Then, like everyone and their mom on Pinterest, I installed three tension rods between the floor and the bottom shelf of the pantry to create a storage area for my bakeware.

{disregard the disgustingly stained baseboard - I put about an hour of elbow grease into that puppy and the stain chose to remain right where it was. loser.}

I then moved on to addressing a storage solution for my bulk items that had been haphazardly thrown on the floor and on the top shelf of the pantry up until this point. I decided to use these uber popular crates from JoAnn for our bulk storage:

While I purchased the pre-primed bins, they still needed one coat of white spray paint once I got them home for a more even, smooth finish. I also wanted to make the bins easy to access, and figure out a way to avoid them scratching or scuffing the tile in the kitchen. I originally planned to put wheels on each of the corners of the crates, but while at Home Depot shopping for said wheels, I ended up finding this ingenious tripod:

Swoon-worthy, indeed. It could support up to 200 pounds, the three wheels can swivel and roll in any direction making the crates easy to get out of the pantry, and they are so small that it wouldn't add too much height to the crates, so they would still fit between the floor and the shelf! Three dabs of Gorilla Glue later, and those puppies were firmly affixed to each of the crates! It's almost repulsive how easy those things made my life.

My last step in making these crates ready for business was....wait for it....a label! Shocker. Using my Silhouette and a bit of leftover hot pink vinyl, I cut some "bulk" labels out and  used painters tape to transfer them to the crates.

After removing the tape, I big-time-dug my little storage crates.

After loading up all of my bakeware and bulk goods into their new home, I was smitten!

The bakeware is perfectly contained in its upright home and all of my over-sized and bulk items are happily sequestered in their new digs. All is right in the world.

As for that top shelf? After cleaning out those extra cans and a bit of straightening, it's looking rather sassy as well:

No fabulous storage solutions here, but it's the perfect space for my huge roasting pan, cupcake tin, and foil freezer containers.

Now, I can officially say that the pantry is ready for its close-up and functioning splendidly!

{my apologies for all of the lighting issues in these photogs...pantries have a secret aversion to good lighting.}

Oh, happy day. Mr. Spouse could do with a bit less pink in the pantry, but I say, who's the one cookin?