Pantry Evolution

Since we moved into this house 5 years ago, this closet under the stairs has been an ever changing space. First it was a play area for our daughter which I was so excited to create band she loved at first but it had no light so she didn’t use it very much. It also had an easel in their for her to do art but then it turned into a dumping ground for anything that was hers. We still wish we could store kids stuff in here sometimes but at this point in our lives we need the pantry storage more.

About a year later we got a kitten and later two kittens after the first was eaten and this closet was their space. When kittens are tiny they are supposed to be confined to a small space and this worked perfectly for them. Once they were big enough to sleep in the garage overnight, we turned this closet into a gear closet for our hiking and camping stuff that we didn’t want to store in the garage and wanted easier access too. That didn’t last long because although I thought it was super cool, it was immensely impractical and always felt cluttered.

Then we decided it would make way more sense to move our food from the garage shelves into the house. We lived with those shelves for a couple years and then we swapped out three of the shelves for wider ones a few weeks ago. These shelves are much deeper and I love the black shelf supports we got and I’m so bummed you can’t see them now that the view is blocked by food. We still want to figure out a better solution for the short deep space in the back but for now its storage for delicate items that can’t be in the garage with the temperature swings. I’m hoping to have deep drawers in their someday but who knows!

Let me know if you have any great storage ideas for this back area! Stay tuned and maybe I’ll update this post in the future or write a part 2.