French Pantry: Before & After

In my not-so-large kitchen, I have a real lack of food storage. So, in my attached family-room-turned-eat-in-kitchen, I put a large TV cabinet that I was no longer using for it's original purpose. Cute, no? But as you approach.... beware.......


{jaws music playing}
It's a train wreck inside!!! With the baby shower this weekend, I thought "oh dear lord, what if someone needs to grab some ketchup and has to open my pantry?" So I thought I better clean it out and spiff it up a little. The idea of my french pantry was born.

First I cleaned it all out. I {unfortunately} had tons of food that had expired and had to be thrown away. Bad me.

Then I decided I wanted something cute to line the shelves with. I wanted to use tea towels, or these cute placemate I have, or lace or something. I wanted it to have a vintage, frenchy feel.

I decided to use my Grandmother's lace doilies. I don't usually have them out in my house so this is a way to admire them without them being under a plant or something. And I think it gives it that cute vintage flavor I was after. For the containers, I used only things I had on hand... photo storage boxes {for more ideas on how to use these, click here} cute baskets, metal bins, my coffee dyed french stamped tags for labels, and that's it! Et voila!

The top shelf.

I love storing my sugars and whole wheat flour in these big jars from Cost Plus. Add a cute tag and I thoroughly enjoy getting out the sugar. I also hung a great tray my Mom got me in France on the back wall of the pantry, using Velcro. Worked like a charm. Now I have something to look at when I'm digging for mac-n-cheese.

The 2nd shelf. Used 2 matching garden metal bins {these are also great to use for beverage tubs at parties} more lace from Mimi, a vintage wine box w/ french stamp, and a little garden bunny, to block the Skippy, just cuz.

Here's a cute metal basket I repurposed to hold beans:


A close up of the tags, tied with jute twine.

More frenchy cuteness:

And finally, I hung 2 salad-drying bags {vintage, but like 1980's vintage, but cute anyways} from an upholstery tack as well as the back side of a vintage french postcard, bought here.


Eventually, I would like to hang a vintage apron up inside, and add some more postcards to the inside of the doors. Or, decopage cute frenchy scrapbook paper inside. Hmmm, that's sounds really cute. I will work on that next. Hope you enjoy and are inspired to tackle a closet or cabinet that's {insert Jaw's music} horrendous!

p.s. I used the word "cute" 11 times. Pathetic. I need a new word. Ideas?