Kitchen Pantry Inspiration

I wanted to catch y'all up on our Kitchen Makeover.

I am SO EXCITED (squeeee!!!) that I will have a new kitchen in just about 2 more weeks!!
But....

We still have to deal with plumbers, drywall, patching, painting, & removing the old cabinets all ourselves before any new cabinets can go in. Oh, and finish unpacking all of our moving boxes still in the garage so the company can have a place to store our new cabinets till they are installed. Which means completely re-configuring our storage room in the basement with new shelves I bought like 2 months ago and haven't done anything with yet.

All within less than 2 weeks.
Yikes.
I'll be eating a DQ Blizzard as therapy now...
....I'm really not kidding. Ice cream can work wonders.
Now why can't I seem to lose those last 10 pounds??
Hmmm ;)...

Well, to keep my mind off of the work ahead of me today :), I thought you'd like to see
one of my favorite things about our new kitchen:


The Pantry

This (above) is the current "before" pantry.
This pic was actually taken before we moved in. The pantry is somewhat functional, but very very very BLAH.

Since you see this pantry space from the front entry and the living room too, it really needed to look as lovely as possible!

Enter inspiration photos:

See that circled built-in cabinet above?
That was my inspiration for our new pantry!
*sigh*
Isn't she pretty?!!

Our new house doesn't have much going for it in terms of "character".
This nest needed some built-in loveliness to make her really sing!

I love how our new pantry will look like a built-in furniture piece, like how gorgeous old homes have built-in china cabinets or butler's pantries.

Here's the line drawing of our new pantry to give you a rough idea of what she'll look like!

Glass front doors on top will hold beautiful baskets with extra dishes or baking items, or pasta, for example.

The plate rack below will be both decorative and functional.

The drawer will be holding small snacks, perfect for school, after-school, or on-the-go munching!
My other idea for the drawer would be to hold placemats and napkin rings to make setting the table a snap!

The lower cabinet will have roll out shelves for cereal & breakfast items, and chips, along with kids' dishes and cups (so they can easily help themselves).


I've already been purchasing a few goodies for getting the new pantry organized!
I can't wait!!!

Keep checking out the Kitchen Makeover area on my right sidebar to see what progress we're making over the next 2 weeks!


Do you have any tips for organizing your pantry you'd like to share with us in the comments?
What would your dream pantry look like?