One corner at a time: Understairs cupboard

As part of the One corner at a time to a Happy Home challenge I’ve set myself I started with what was the smallest corner, but probably the messiest: the understairs cupboard. This area was a desolate wasteland, a dumping ground. The shelves were too wide, so I couldn’t see what was on there and it made it difficult to pass by to get to the back. Gradually, as we couldn’t easily get in, we started just throwing things in and ended up with this:

I didn’t even really know what was in there by the end. We had some interesting finds, some delicious treats were hiding in the corner. Really there were.

Here is the bare space:I found some left over magnolia paint, so we washed the walls down and I gave it a single coat. Look at the difference a coat of paint already makes:

I was going to put some cheap linoleum down, but in rumaging through the garage a week earlier I stumbled on a box of laminate flooring left over from another project (in our previous house, I think). Therefore I roped my cousin in to help lay the floor (Dadonthebrink was down with the lurgy. )

While the flooring was being done, I made a plan of what I wanted in there and how I wanted the shelves.

I wanted a pantry where I could store some of my larger pots and pans, my slow cooker, vases as well as all the foods and drinks we stock up on from home.  It was important to be able to have a very good overview of the contents, so things don’t spoil because they are hidden at the back of a shelf.

We ended up reusing the old shelves by cutting them down the middle length-wise. I only needed to buy some wood for the uprights.

In our garage, I also found an unused IKEA hallway shelf with coat hooks which I had bought ages ago with the intention of using it in our old house. It was never put up there and moved with us.  Now it has a home:

We left the hard to reach corner for another project- that is a different, more difficult corner to tackle at some other time- and recycled some more shelves at the bottom end of the pantry. I covered them in some offcuts of wall paper.  This is to provide storage for the wider items.

The structure ready, it was time for me to fill the space.  In went all the goodies- home-made jams and preserves, lots of yummy flavours from home and lots of other bits and pieces. The large pots and pans all got a place, as did the aprons, clean kitchen towels and the vacuum cleaner and other cleaning implements.

It’s still a little bit of a work in progress but here’s how it looks now.

Went the clutter in the rest of the house gets to us, we often switch on the light and stand and admire the relative order in here.  This recharges us for the next project.

What do you think of my new pantry?

Have you undertaken any decluttering, organising, mini DIY recently?  Please do link up!