pantry love

We have officially moved our laundry room out of our kitchen!  

It was on my New Year's resolution list and it can be scratched off.

We stacked new front loaders (washer & dryer, that is) in the den closet, there was even enough room for my rolly laundry cart next to them... and it keeps the dirty laundry that is in the works out of sight (it used to pile up on the kitchen floor, lovely, I know). Sold the old washer and dryer on Craigstlist in less than 1 hour, and forgot to unload the clothes out of the dryer before we met the people who bought them, glad they opened the dryer door... as I would have been missing some of my favorite things.

Now... what excites me even more than the new laundry space is the new-found pantry space.  I've never had a pantry.  I've had my bread, crackers, what-have-you on the countertop in the corner of this here kitchen for 5 years.

We have a tiny little kitchen. I have no complaints though... it has all the necessities. We might be cramped when we have children someday, but for now it works, and the pantry is a huge help!

Now our new pantry is nothing fancy (we aren't fancy people): it's comprised of our green lockers from Round Top (for the broom, mop, Swiffer, paper towels) and a basic metal shelf from Lowes:

and

The husband (surprisingly) agreed with my idea to paper the walls of the pantry in grasscloth:

I chose Arrowroot Color #074 by Phillip Jeffries

And just because this is a kitchen that I think about often and have never posted on:

{Cottage Living. Photographed by Tim Street-Porter}

Heather Chadduck's kitchen featured in Cottage Living. Sweet simplicity. Here's what she said in the article about her kitchen:

The kitchen proved my biggest challenge. I took it down to the studs, pulling up three layers of linoleum and one sad layer of 1970s-era fake parquet to find the original hardwood floors in pretty good shape. Taking advantage of a perfect opportunity to paint a floor, I brushed giant diamonds and polka dots right on top of the oak, then had them lightly sanded (paint and all) and sealed. Now they look as old as the cottage itself.

I splurged on custom cabinets so I could get the layout I wanted, sacrificing storage space to accommodate my antique French blackboard and newly restored 1950s Chambers stove. My dad handmade the open shelving, my Christmas gift, which arrived just in time for the holidays. And now, after months of ordering takeout, I’ll confess that I love my kitchen most of all. My mom—fondly known as “Suga”—who endured the whole process over the phone, is just glad it’s finally done.

The whole article is here.

I love her Chambers stove, don't you!?  I wonder if she had to buy "mini" cookie sheets, I know mine wouldn't fit in that oven... but it's so darn cute, I could make due with smaller cookie sheets. 

Comments

[taylor brown]

exciting!!! tell us about your washer/dryer! did you go with LG? do you love them??

[Jenn]

glad I'm not the only one with a lanudry room/kitchen! except I doubt your washer and dryer were actually sitting IN the kitchen. oy.

hopefully we'll be able to move our's into a closet sometime in '09, but for now, it's a tad too shallow so we'll have to move the walls out a bit.

which washer/dryer did you buy?

[Jessica]

my laundry "room" is sadly in the garage right now...and we don't have a washer and dryer for it yet - please do tell what kind you got...we're on the hunt for some right now. I'd love a laundry room someday! Our kitchen is pretty small too, but thankfully it had a "pantry" that is just like a built-in cabinet one... I like your new pantry even better though! and I love the idea of lining it with grasscloth.

[Courtney]

Ummm hello - I have laundry sitting on my kitchen floor as I type this! So stylish, no?

I love the grasscloth in the kitchen and I'm glad Chance gave the green light for that one! It will look so nice. And I also love the idea of using the lockers to hold the janitorial items!

And oh, my, that kitchen! I KNEW I should have bought a blackboard at Round Top, but none of them were this lovely. I wish that photo was 10x larger so I could study every last detail. Swoon.

[Laura Ingalls Gunn]

While living on the island of Crete my teeny pink european washer was in the bathroom.
Dryer? What dryer. Oh yeah, a clothesline. I so love having an entire laundry room~ very spoiled!

[Kcdm]

Living in a small FL weekend style cottage with two goldies and a 20-month old, I feel your pain! We have NO pantry (we bought Elfa shelving from Container Store and installed in the water heater closet!) and a 'spot' for the washer/dryer but it's not a utility room by any means. My DREAM is a large utility room with a deep basin sink next to front loaders, lots of cabinets - some with doors and some not, garment rack, space for our industrial size steamer, ironing board and of course, space for the doggies' stuff. A girl can dream... ahhh.

[Annmarie]

I'd like to move into your pantry! And, yet again, you have found perfection in that kitchen!!! ??

[pve design]

The washer and dryer was in my kitchen too and we moved it down to the basement to make room for a breakfast banquette which we love. Next renovation, I think I will just hire a laundress, but my husband says I love to do laundry! Truth be told, I do find it therapeutic, that and writing on anything! (Chalkboards included!)
Fun Kitchen!

[The Lil Bee]

Maybe it's because my husband is a teacher, but I love the idea of a giant chalkboard in the kitchen. It might even inspire me to cook more, since naturally I'd use the space to post menus and daily specials. Additionally, it could be used for lists, as I thoroughly enjoy a good to-do list. Fantastic!

[coach sale]

Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.