A New Pantry For $30

Happy Spring! Finally, it’s here! The ground is covered in snow and it’s freeeeezing, but it’s technically Spring. Hallelujah. As promised, I’m kicking off Spring with a fresh project that’s putting a spring in my step. Here we go…

I’ll start with a disclaimer - it’s not quite a “new” pantry for $30 as stated in the title of this post. It’s actually an updated pantry for $30, but really, it feels new to me so I’m sticking with that.

You may remember that I started a pantry upgrade last Wednesday. I gave myself a week to get ‘er done.

Well, here we are a week later, and things are looking up thanks to the help of my first second third true love.

Behr Ultra Pure White: I Love You

Oh Ultra Pure White, UPW, UP Dubs, I love you.

I also cleaned up the space a bit with the help of these Fido brand jars.

Fido Jars

Here’s a gentle reminder of our pantry “area” when we first bought the house.

Sorry if you were eating breakfast. I know, it was gross. Keep in mind, we’ve since painted the walls and had the floors refinished among other things…

This is the pantry as it stood just a week ago.

This is the pantry after I started to paint the door frame.

Here’s a shot a few days into the project.

Here is our new and improved pantry. So much better!

I’m obsessed with my new jars. For now, I’m using them for bagged snacks and loose items like wrapped granola bars and hot cocoa. Once the humidity sets in this spring and summer, I think they’ll do a much better job of keeping the moisture out of the snacks.

Here are a couple of shots looking to the back of the pantry. I have paper goods and drinks on the bottom shelf. I’m sure I’ll tweak things as I go along.

You’re asking how I got it all done, right? Well, I’ll tell you. Slave labor. Self-inflicted slave labor. I was the slave driver. I painted after work and before work, leaving about 12 hours in between for dry time. I let it cure for about 3 days before I loaded it up with the pantry contents. The cure time is much longer for regular wood, but because I was painting particle board, it soaked up the paint and wasn’t tacky at all. So far so good.

I had the paint on hand from other projects so that was FREE!

The paintbrush was also left over from other projects so that was free as well, although painting the particle board near ruined the brush, so I’ll have to count the cost of a new brush into my next endeavor. Not too bad.

The Fido jars were scored at Christmas Tree Shop. I picked up (3) 5-quart jars for $6/ea and (4) 1 1/2-quart jars for $3/ea. Bargain hunter’s note: These jars are sold on Amazon for $15 and $9, respectively. Score!

So, total cost for this facelift was $30.

The power of paint - it gets me every time.

Working on anything good in your neck of the woods?

#Before & After