My pantry is very deep and things tend to get lost in it's depths. I spent 1 day shopping and organizing and came up with some solutions:

My husband cut about 3 inches off the shelves and moved the shelf support bars back, which enabled me to put some racks on the doors. You can see in the photo below where we moved the shelves back.

 

 

I bought 3 wall mounted cabinet rack sets from Wal-Mart for $7.44 each (each set came with 3 different racks).

 

I bought an extra large lazy susan at Bed Bath and Beyond for $10 (after my $5 off coupon).

I bought the 3 baskets with handles at Wal-Mart for $2.50 each.

I bought the large cereal containers at Wal-Mart for $5.74 each and the totes were $4.47 each.

 

I got my free printable labels here: http://blog.worldlabel.com/2012/chalk-labels-in-fillable-templates.html

I just printed mine on regular paper and ran them through my Xyron sticker maker.

  

As I was sorting out everything, I discovered lots of duplicates. With such a deep pantry, it was hard to see what we had, so duplicates were bought and food in the back went bad.  I spent a total of $57.07 on containers and racks, but will end up saving hundreds of dollars on food.

I had 2 racks left over, so I decided to give one of my kitchen cabinets a quick makeover.

It wasn't too bad since I already had OXO containers that I bought and labeled about 4 years ago.

By putting racks on the cabinet doors, I didn't have to put stuff in front of my containers and could get it out of the way on the doors. I also really liked my new chalk labels in the pantry, and decided to re-do the ones on my OXO containers.

These are some extra spices that didn't fit into my spice rack that is hanging in the other cabinet. I had them sitting in a drawer, which I was able to empty out after hanging this rack.

 

Now I have a completely empty drawer!

Total cost to organize and clean cupboard: $0

It is amazing what a little cleaning and some fresh new labels will do.

Once I start organizing, it is hard to stop. I was only going to do my pantry, but loved how great it looked and had to keep going. Even my husband who hates cleaning and organizing started to get into it when he saw what a difference it made.

Linking to:
Organize and Decorate Everything

Painted Fireplace Mantel, Built-In Bookcases, and Fireplace

Back when I painted my kitchen cabinets, I also painted these built-in bookcases and mantel. I used the same colors that I used for the kitchen cabinets here: Kitchen Remodel - Painting Cabinets

I used a can of Rust-Oleum High Heat spray paint for the fireplace.

How to Refinish a Solid Surface Counter Top

My kitchen may have been outdated with honey oak cabinets and salmon colored tile, but the solid surface counter tops were still in pretty good shape. They have flecks of red, which is why I chose red as my accent color in the kitchen. The only problem with the counters is that there were a few burn marks and some scratches. With granite or laminate, this would have been bad news, but easily fixed with solid surface. Here is what I did to get brand new counter tops for free:

 Before picture with light brown burn marks.

1. I pulled out my palm sander and used the roughest grit sandpaper I had (about 120). I sanded in circular motions until I had gotten out all of the burn marks and scratches.

2. I switched to a finer sandpaper (about 220-grit) and sanded the entire area in circular motions.

3. I used about a 320-grit sandpaper and repeated sanding the entire area in circular motions.

4. I wiped away all the dust (this does make a pretty big mess of fine white powder), and buffed the counter tops with a wet abrasive cleaning sponge.

5. I had some counter top polish that I sprayed on and buffed the counter with, but this part is not necessary.

This was the easiest and cheapest of all my kitchen projects and people keep asking me if I bought new counter tops.

These solid surface counter tops are over 10 years old, but they look brand new.

Kitchen Remodel - Painting Cabinets

Last summer, we decided to paint our kitchen cabinets which led to painting and re-building our entertainment center, painting our built-in bookcases and mantel, ripping out the tile and installing a laminate floor, and all sorts of other projects.

We bought our 1984 house 18 months ago and it had a TON of honey oak cabinets everywhere. After about 6 months I couldn't take it anymore and decided to paint all the honey oak in the kitchen-greatroom.

Here are the Before and Afters:

One of my cabinets was built for a garbage can and has a fancy pull out bottom, but I like having my recycling bin and garbage out for easy access.

We moved the light fixture with a swag kit which you can read about here: Spray Painting and Moving a Light Fixture

I kept the doors off the cabinet above the desk to give it a more open feel. I keep my cookbooks here and like to have quick and easy access.
I used paint stripper, sanded the top of the desk and bought the darkest stain I could find. I applied several coats of stain to get it nice and dark and then I applied several coats of polyurethane.

This is what I originally planned for this desk, but I soon decided that I didn't like the computer in the kitchen and would rather have a bulletin board and bright red retro phone.

I bought this phone at Amazon for free with my Swag Bucks and I LOVE it! The cordless phones in my house seem to disappear and I can never find one when I need it. No one can walk away with this phone and I no longer miss calls. I installed a talking caller id (also from Amazon) under the cabinet which is the round looking thing. I LOVE having my calendar, phone, phone numbers, and other important papers right here in the heart of the home.

The Process:

Since our tile floor was a 90s pink salmon color and cracked in many places, we decided not to worry about getting paint on it. Later on in the remodel we discovered the floor was uneven due to water damage, which is why the tile was cracked in so many places. You can see that post here: Laminate Floor

Instead of sanding, I cleaned all the cabinets with TSP. We also did the entertainment center, mantel, and built-in bookcases at the same time and there is no way I was going to sand all of that oak!

Painting all of the cabinets with a brush would have taken forever, so we bought this Wagner Control Spray for around $50. We had to thin out the paint with water, but we did several coats and it gave us a beautiful and smooth finish.

I didn't like the placement of the knobs, so we filled in all the holes (My husband and I are both short and the knobs on the taller upper cabinets were way too high for us).

We took off all the doors and taped up the countertops.

I bought lots of paint samples and experimented before deciding on the right colors. Since there are a LOT of cabinets (one of the reasons I fell in love with this house) I thought I should break up the monotony and do the bottom cabinets a different color.

We used Bulls Eye 1-2-3 Primer and had it tinted for the bottom cabinets. The primer claims to work on glossy surfaces with no sanding necessary and it did.

Here is everything we used:
1. TSP to clean the cabinets and prep for painting.
2. Bulls Eye 1-2-3 Primer (had some tinted to match the bottom cabinets).
3. Behr flat paint matched to Martha Stewart Mourning Dove for the bottom cabinets.
We sprayed 3 coats and used flat paint since we painted polyurethane on top.
4. Behr flat paint matched to Sherwin-Williams Alabaster for the top cabinets. We sprayed 3 coats.
5. MinWax water based oil-modified polyurethane clear semi-gloss. We tried to spray this, but it ran and looked terrible. We brushed 3 coats of this on all the cabinets creating a nice hard finish. This did darken the paint making the alabaster white a much darker cream, which I was planning on when I chose alabaster.
6. A contractors pack of stainless steel knobs and some Martha Stewart pulls for the drawers.

It has now been a year since we painted these cabinets and they are still beautiful and durable. Painting all those coats of polyurethane has really paid off and makes cleaning the cabinets easy.

Link Parties:
Wednesday
Handy Man, Crafty Woman, Organize and Decorate Everything, Southern Lovely, Trendy Treehouse, Savvy Southern Style,
Mad about Organizing, Adorned from Above

Friday

The Shabby Nest , At The Picket Fence, My Romantic Home