So I know that pantries are not exactly on a lot of people’s radar as areas in our homes that can be “made-over.”  The other day on Facebook, I alluded to making my pantry look “sexy” and one of my friends said there’s no such thing as a “sexy pantry”.  But whether you’re in the “hide it and ignore it” crowd, or the “every space can be beautiful” crowd (me! me!), I think we can all agree that this space definitely had room for improvement:

The remnants of a psychedelic hot-pink and lime green kitchen lived on in the pantry, even though we’d replaced the pink cabinets in the kitchen.  After removing the odd addition of Spanish tile from the floors, a huge gap was left between the floor and baseboards, which created a free-for-all entrance for mice (we caught three last week alone).  And even a year after moving in, I had yet to organize the 47,000 natural supplements, spices, or even BBQ tools.  It was a monstrosity.  Not exactly inspiring for someone who already struggles with the desire to cook.  After all, we’d managed to get rid of this eyesore a while back, so why not let progress take it’s natural course?

Yikes!  Sometimes I still can’t believe we were motivated to buy this house after seeing this.

And what’s with all those perfectly good, but empty canisters?

The hot pink had to go, but not only that, it needed just a bit more sumpin’-sumpin’.  Something shiny, as Taytem always suggests, and for once, I agreed with her.  I cleared the pantry and made a big, healthy mess in the dining room with it all.  Then I color tested the left-over gray paint from our school room redo.  I knew that I wanted to do horizontal bands, so for the second color, I grabbed another leftover can of paint – a pearlescent metallic paint by Martha F. Stewart (as in Martha “freaking” Stewart as I like to call her, because how does she freaking do it all?!).  I taped everything off, went to town on that tiny room, and 20 hours later, stumbled out of the paint fumes with this:

To my dear friend Chuck, there SO is such a thing as a “sexy pantry”!  My husband covered the mouse alley with this built in platform (by this time, my hand was too cramped up to paint any further.  Just pretend it’s the same color as the shelves, okie dokie?

I also temporarily painted the floor to make it look a bit cleaner until we get some new flooring.  Just pretend it’s cork, okie dokie?  And of course, I just happened to have a spare chandelier sitting around, and my tall, electrically proficient husband hung it for me.  And after going through the mountain of unappreciated spices, unused supplements and dusty canisters, I waved my magic wand and turned it all to this:

Way to go, Pantry!  Work it.  Be yo’ sexy self!  Yes, I now talk to my pantry.  I also talk IN my pantry, like when I’m on the phone and the girls are screaming at each other – I just go into my pantry and ooh and aah and relax.  And of course, have myself a little snack now that I can find them.