Good Lord, We've Done it Again!!

    I didn't even finish posting all the changes at the house we were renovating in Solomons, MD and we've already moved again!

    Sometimes life throws you a curve ball and you just have to be ready to deal with it. We were having fun living on the bay - we bought a boat (funny story!), we were renovating a house, we were busy. We were also pretty homesick for our kids and the valley we left almost four hours away. The more we talked about it the more we realized we wanted to find a place in the Shenandoah Valley. 

Once the decision was made, we started getting things organized - got the house on the market in MD - found a house in VA - got ourselves moved in June of 2020. Covid made things a little complicated but we worked it out. 

This is the house we bought:

    

It's about a year old. A lovely custom built modern craftsman with an open floorplan. It's 3600sq ft, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms. Probably bigger than what 2 little old people need - but it's one of those homes that's meant for gathering and after the last year of Covid - we're ready to gather!

    Even though the house is new, there are lots of projects we want to get done. Since we were on lockdown with plenty of time on our hands, the first thing we decided to tackle was getting a large freezer and having our walk-in pantry re-done. We wanted to be able to buy in bulk and have plenty of storage for everything. Eventually there will be a garden and greenhouse as well so organized food storage was critical.

    This is what we started with:

    We wanted to be able to make better use of the space. It's not a huge pantry but it does have 10ft ceilings. So step one was getting all the shelves out and repairing the holes. I hate wire shelves!

    I painted it a dark, charcoal grey. Most of it got covered by the cabinets and shelving but I love the color! It makes the wood and white cabinets stand out.

    

The next step was to get the shelving and cabinets built. I wanted to have space for a drink fridge and our wine cooler, storage for cookbooks and small appliances as well as plenty of food storage. A bonus is that there are two outlets in there! The taller spaced shelving by the door is where the wine cooler, cookbooks, blender and charging station will be.

Drawers and cabinets are great for storing large boxes, bulk goods and smaller odds-n-ends.

There are two outlets in the pantry, one near the floor and one closer to the ceiling. This worked out perfect. We were able to put the drink fridge and the wine cooler in the pantry as well as having room to plug in a charging station for phones and tablets. There's plenty of shelf space for food storage and the top shelf gives me room to store items that I don't need very often as well as small appliances.

    It's not huge but it's mighty! Now - on to the master bedroom, I'm ready to tackle wallpaper!