Here’s something that not everyone of a limited means has in their kitchen…a butler’s pantry. Yes, it’s Boujee and extra but I’m obsessed with all the pretty display space it gives me for my fancy dinnerware. Plus, if you have an extra closet and a free weekend, you can have one too!
My before kitchen was builder grade EVERYTHING straight down to the overhead fluorescent light fixture only suitable for a hospital operating room.
What I did have though, was an awkward “pantry” closet right off my breakfast nook. I can’t even tell you how much I enjoyed banging into the doors when gathering around the table for a meal, and asking people to please, ahem, scoot out/in so I can get to the napkins or into my seat. Also the fact that I was the only one in the family to ever close the doors to the embarrassing mess inside. But I digress…
Here is one of the many before’s:
At this point, I had already decided that this pantry was not a suitable place to store food because of the aforementioned mess and spacial conflicts. BUT, I really wanted a place to plug in my ugly to look at frequently used appliances like my toaster oven and toaster. I dragged an extension cord into the closet and called it good. For a minute. Until I tried to mix something and every inch inside was involved in an unfortunate batter incident.
Sooo, back to the drawing board. Here’s more photos of what I was working with:
First I needed to get rid of the wire shelves and the doors. Bring your pliers and your “A” game for this job because ripping out those anchors requires 110 lbs of sheer will. I am a girl of limited means so hiring someone to demo it or build it out was not an option. Then it came to me when I was browsing at my local favorite thrift store. I could use a counter height dresser as the base and put shelves on top for open storage.
I was so proud of myself for having this brilliant epiphany as I was looking at this awesome solid wood bargain dresser for $30 that would just fit in the closet (with only an inch to spare)! Then I dragged it home and tried to get it in the closet. Nope. “How about if we turn it this way? No. How about that way? No again. How about if we turn it on it’s side and flip it upside down?” Not. going. to. happen.
Here’s a GREAT tip for you that I learned the hard way that day… When you want to fit a dresser in a closet you must measure it by the diagonal to see if it will fit first. If the diagonal is wider than the door opening it’s not going to go in no matter which way your turn it. As it turns out I have a very good friend who was a complete sucker guilted into willing to completely take apart the dresser and put it back together for me in the closet.
By the way I do not recommend this method. It took my extremely capable friend about 7 hours to do this and I still have a very large hand full of screws left over that could not be homed. Also, if this dresser ever leaves the closet it will only be with a chainsaw.
At all the haste in just getting the F@#* thing in by the grace of my friend and at the bargain price of a Caesar salad, I did not have a chance to stain the dresser before (which I also do not recommend). After it was all mostly put back together, I used General Finishes Gel stain in Brown Mahogany, the same stain that I used in half of my kitchen cabinets. I highly recommend this awesome product and I’ve used it multiple times. It allowed me to get a beautiful finish even though I could not reach all the areas easily or even remotely uniformly. Here it is after:
I also put up self-adhesive LED tape lighting all around the inside of the closet wall that I purchased from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3kM9Va8
Now I needed a low cost shelving solution for above the base. I remembered that my local Habitat for Humanity Restore had kitchen cabinets for the price of about $30-$50 each, in oak, the same material as what was already in my kitchen and that I had previously refinished with General Finishes Milk Paint in Antique White. The problem with getting them used, is that you have to be flexible with size, finish, and overall look. I was lucky that they had 3 oak 42″ cabinets that matched the rest of what I already had in my kitchen, but the sizes differed by several inches. I needed to fill a 63″ wall, so I selected one cabinet that was 21″, one that was 12″ and one that was 24″. I was not going to use the doors so the style did not matter, just the material of the “boxes”.
Which leads me to my next tip: When hanging non-uniform cabinets in a closet, start by hanging the middle cabinet in the center of the opening. This will give you the illusion of uniformity where there isn’t any, and the closet walls will hide the truth. I selected the 12″ cabinet for the middle because I knew that would hide the difference in size in the other two behind the walls.
To get them to match my existing refinished cabinetry I cleaned them, primed them, and painted them prior to hanging them in the closet above the dresser. I go into all the details on how to do this in my post: How I painted my oak kitchen cabinets.
At first, I still used a hidden extension cord to run power to the closet where there wasn’t any. Later, I had my dad pull the power into the closet from the other side of the wall where there was an existing supply. And here is the after, all dressed up and ready for the party:
Over the past year, the organization of the contents of the butler’s pantry have moved and changed as our needs have, but it still remains the beautiful work horse of the kitchen. The total cost of this project was about $135 in cabinetry and less than $50 in materials, since I used leftover paint and supplies from my previous kitchen project. A closet like this could be converted to so many awesome things if a butler’s pantry isn’t what you need. A kitchenette for an in-law suite, a coffee bar, kids snack bar, appliance garage, mudroom with hooks, office space…etc. With a little creativity and alternative thinking, the list goes on and on. I hope it inspires you to look around your home and see new potential for the existing layout.
Cheers! Jennifer
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