Once upon a time, there was a strange little cupboard that existed in a hallway. It was just the right size to house canned goods and foods that didn’t quite fit into the spice cupboard. It was awkward – like a cupboard still stumbling through puberty. I often ignored it or cursed at it, and then one crazy day, I decided to overhaul it.

Here are the “before” photos. Notice that most things are just stacked on top of each other? There is even a carrier bag of rice cakes just jammed onto the top shelf, exactly the same way that I brought it home from the grocery store. If this were Mt. Laziness, that – my dear friends – is the summit.

I emptied the contents of the pantry on the table (seen in the previous post), and painted over the beige horror. I picked the blue-green color (“Raindance” by Benjamin Moore) that we used in our bathroom. Because I had a half-gallon of paint here, it was a free upgrade to the pantry!

After I had downsized the goods in the pantry (because who really needs three bags of chip crumbs?), I started to get the remaining food sorted. This summer, I scored the deal of the century at a friends’ garage sale: I got a huge lot of Tupperware storage containers – the real deal, burping lids and all! – for about $10. They were all mis-matched, but I really didn’t care. Instead, I created some uniformity by giving each one a chalkboard vinyl label.

Chalkboard vinyl is rad. It is easy to cut, doesn’t require transfer paper, and can be written on with chalk or a chalk marker. Chalkboard vinyl also doesn’t require the user to have a fancy cutting machine. You can cut it out with a craft punch or simply a stencil and scissors. I’ve also recently learned about chalkboard contact paper (it’s not vinyl, but designed for shelves and walls) which is a cheaper alternative that should do the same job.

This wipe-on-wipe-off ability will come in handy if I decide to decant different items into the containers in the future. The lasagna noodles container was actually a celery-stick-holder in Once Upon A Tupperware time. It’s like it was meant to be!

In the pantry itself, I mimicked an idea that I had seen on Jennifer Flores’ blog, Rambling Renovators, and added a chalkboard vinyl silhouette to the bizarro wall space. This way I can keep a running stock list of the frequently used goods in the pantry and shop and meal plan accordingly.

Finally, I added a little quote of wonderful on top of the chalkboard silhouette. I became quite taken with Julia Child during the fanfare of Julie Powell’s “Julie and Julia” blog-to-book-to-movie success. It sounds like Julia Child was an amazing woman, and some of her more famous quotations are spot-on. I chose “People who love to eat are always the best people”. I could have gone with my own words: “Get your grubby little hands out of the pantry and go for a run!”, but that seemed like a bit of a buzzkill.

I’m hoping that I’ve made lemonade out of the lemons that this awkward little wall offered me. Next I have to tackle the actual organization of foodstuffs. This is proving to be a bit more problematic. My cheapy-cheap contact paper failed, and ended up being more of an exercise of patience and knowing when to quit. You can imagine that having a 2 and 4 year old “help” would only increase the odds that it would end in a sticky, frustrating mess: “Why are you ripping that sticker off, Mommy? What are you doing? Why are you throwing that out? Is the craft over, Mommy? Is it?”

Auuuughhhhh! I just crumpled it into a big sticky ball and chucked it out. I should not be sweating when I am installing contact paper. And yes, this craft is over!

I have come up with a few clever solutions for my pantry chaos, and I will complete the job in the next few days! However, if you have any tips you’d like to pass my way before the job is finished, please leave them in the comments!