The Sunshine Room

Here it is in all its glory. Finished right down to the last shelf mounted on the wall. Finished but not yet stocked with all the goodies I want to stock in my pantry.

This is the door leading into my 8' x 16' pantry room. Well, those are the outside measurements so you know it's only 7'-something by 15'-something on the inside. Still a wonderfully roomy pantry by any standards. It's been a long time coming, but now I have it. (Hee-hee-hee!)

Open the door and you see the one window (facing north) directly across the room. My big freezer will be centered under the window.

Looking down to the right along that same wall will be a small chest freezer snuggled up next to the big one. A short length of shelves above the small freezer will hold back-up paper products, freezer bags, aluminum foil, freezer paper and such.

Across the room (on the same wall as the door) and to the right as you enter is the set of extra sturdy shelves hubby constructed.

More of a full-on view of the same shelving unit.

Standing inside the doorway and looking to the left, you see the U-shaped unit of closed cabinets below with shelves above.

Just a little different angle of the same storage area.

I am so eager to start filling shelves and cabinets. Papa Pea is trying to hold me back thinking we will need the space to temporarily store the contents of the present kitchen cabinets when we start tearing into them.

The frames of my current kitchen cabinets will stay the same, but I will paint the frames. New pine doors are being made to replace the old, worn and bonged-up doors on the cabinets.

However . . . (shhh, don't tell Papa Pea), I'm thinking only the lower cabinets in the kitchen will have to be emptied. We're keeping some of them, but also adding newly constructed ones for a different cabinet configuration. I will have to empty the lowers in order for them to be rearranged and then screwed back together but that should take no more than a day's time. I could empty them and stack everything on the kitchen table for a few hours. So I may employ a little guerrilla warfare today when Papa Pea is engaged elsewhere and start pulling things I have stashed in various (inconvenient) spots all over the house (yep, places like under the bed and in closets) to start making the pantry look like a pantry is supposed to look.

I will concede that we should wait to move the freezers into the pantry since the open floor space will be a handy spot to put furniture when we get the kitchen done and start on the living room. That would be a lot easier than trying to cover the furniture and work around it while doing the stairway, ceiling, walls and floor in there.

It set us back a day or so in the move-ahead scheme of things, but both of us are so, so glad I took the time to repaint the pantry walls. Yes, it's bright, no doubt about it. But I love it!