We’ve had a busy week. In addition to working on our pantry, Wyatt’s been working on a building project at our church, as well as bottling his most recent batch of home brew beer. Oh, and we’ve had meetings on two nights. Sheesh.

So, the pantry isn’t quite done, but it’s getting closer with a tiny bit of progress each night. In the meantime, I wanted to share a few more details on how I spruced up the inside of our DIY pantry using some super cheap, super cute contact paper.

For starters, it was painted white, which was fine, but since it wasn’t a highly lacquered finish, it was starting to get messy even with just a little use. It’s hard to see because of the shadows, but trust me when I say it looked dingy.

First of all, did you know they made such cute contact paper and sold it in regular stores…like Wal-Mart? I looked online for several weeks and found some cute but pricey options on amazon, even looking into buying peel and stick wallpaper, only to find everything was really expensive.

So, I happened to look at Target (and Wal-Mart!) and found these cute patterns.

Crazy right? And totally cute for the inside of pantry, I thought. I went with alternating colors of each shelf, trying to keep it as busy and nice as possible.

Installing then was a pain in the rear, I won’t lie, especially the very bottom shelf since I had to lay down on the floor and squeeze my arms, head, and shoulders into the narrow shelf and reach all the way back to the back. Not to mention it has this cutout I had to work around. Ouch.

Imagine wrestling with super-sticky paper that wrinkles and bunches and creases when your’re laying on the floor with your arms outstretched in front of you above your head when you can’t even stand your head up straight. Yikes.

It wasn’t much more fun for the upper shelves.

 

Standing on a ladder and reaching into skinny shelves isn’t glamorous.

Not to mention the mess I made all over the floor. (Yes, this was before we had finished the flooring. I just forgot to talk about it until now.)

But, I managed and eventually ended up with shelves that looked like this:

Even though they look cute, it’s also super nice that the contact paper is very scrubbable. I can imagine cleaning a sticky spilled jar of condiment/peanut butter/syrup with a sponge and not cursing under my breath. Three cheers for less causes to curse, huh?

All in all, a nice little touch. Of course, it doesn’t show much when it’s all loaded up with food, but it’s still a nice touch. Plus, it’s okay that it doesn’t show. I know it’s there. Kind of like the reason girls wear “cute undies” even though people don’t see them. Because we know it’s there, right?

TMI? Well, sorry.

Oh, and can I just say how nice it is to have all this room for stashing stuff? Nice, huh?

Anyway, that’s one little kitchen update we missed telling you guys about. It’s hard to remember all those little steps when we’ve been doing this for almost a year now. Wowza. A year.

Anybody have tips for using contact paper? I’m going to line all the drawers that Wyatt is making and I’d appreciate any advice to avoid fighting with it. After all, I won’t be laying on the floor, but I am pregnant and starting to get a decent sized belly that gets in my way…so it may still be just as ugly of a fight. 🙂