CONVERTING A MUDROOM INTO A PANTRY ~ BEFORE AND AFTER

Mudroom Makeover

Before

The addition of shelving, doors and drawers were added for food storage

The garage hallway sees a lot of traffic, family and friends come and go from outside where another refrigerator holds water and beverages and stores my large food platters 

It was an easy conversion using the existing built-in already in place

 When our search for a new home began, one feature consistently topped my wishlist, a dedicated room for storing and displaying my dishes and dish collectibles, a "dish pantry nook." This house has the beds and baths I need, but the "nook" space was absent. I knew I would need to design a space where all my dishes could be stored and displayed. Click here if you missed or would like to read my "Food pantry to Dish Nook" post.

Previous pantry renovation for Dish Pantry Nook

After the dish nook drawing was finished, a good food storage plan was needed. I knew I would be using the existing open cabinet that was already in place in the garage entry mudroom. This could be turned into a built-in pantry with doors and shelves, providing a designated space for storing groceries. Additionally, I drew up a built-in pantry plan with shelves and doors to be installed in the adjacent laundry room. This would expand the overall food storage capacity and would solve my food storage problem. Although this would not be the walk-in pantry I enjoyed and began with, it does provide plenty of miscellaneous and food storage space with ease. Problem solved.

Shelves added in the upper section along with drawers below

After

For a clean, uncluttered aesthetic, two sets of double doors and the addition of drawers below conceal the pantry's contents

My wonderful craftsman cabinet builder Dwayne, he can build anything! Just need to get on the wait list

New Food Storage Built-in cabinet in Laundry Room

Our new laundry room built-in pantry

Completed Food Storage cabinet in garage entry hallway

And, the finished pantry is in good company in the back hallway!

The French Hutch

Despite some messy moments, (well actually a lot), and contractor delays that pushed the timeline, the completed pantry conversion was well worth it. The transformation from cluttered garage entry mudroom to organized, built-in storage space, made the entire renovation worthwhile. 

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I hope everyone is enjoying these last glorious days of summer. Thank you dear friends for your visit if you are still here.

TALES OF THE TRAVELING TOTE, A GIVEAWAY AND MY PANTRY REVEAL

Tales of the Traveling Tote and giveaway

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 Welcome to another adventure of The Tales of the Traveling Tote. This is where my fellow Tales of the Traveling Tote friends and I share our latest travels, projects and our most current events. You will have an opportunity to visit other members at the end of this post and learn about our giveaway. 

Food Pantry to Dish Nook

 Reveal 

With no travels here other than weekend visits with family and a few day trips for shopping, we've been on an ongoing "staycation" which has allowed us to finish up the "dish nook" and finally unpack most of our dishes.  The nook is a small space, only 9'1" X 4'5" overall.

Everyone knows I love dishes, and I've collected a few! Some are from friends and family, some from travels brought back as souvenirs. My dream was to have space to store and display my special pieces and collections and make it easy to collect what I need to use. I 

wanted shelves from ceiling to floor. I put pen to paper and drew up my custom design plans along with ideas to give to my cabinet man. He is in high demand so it's been a long wait, but definitely worth it. He custom built all cabinets in our previous home, did the kitchen renovations there and built all the cabinets in this house. He's the only craftsman I trust to do the work. Another trusted helper for me was Miss Courtney. Here she is ready with the first of many dishes we unpacked to store in our new nook!

Miss Courtney brings dishes from storage to place in new Dish Nook

Pantry Before

Jim removed the wire shelving to use in storage. Next, we called the electrician to wire for lighting. I haven't decided if I will use the chandelier I purchased, we measured and now what was once centered, it is now not! The cabinets are different in size so it threw the center off. 

A little bit of a tight squeeze!

Dwayne in pic above and below, our cabinet man. He is so gifted, he can do anything with wood! His employee top pic above

After the stained solid oak countertop was installed, we hired the same man who did the tile in our last house and all the tile work in this house to do the ceramic tile backsplash. This is the same tile used in the kitchen, keeping a uniform flow throughout. 

Food Pantry to "Dish Nook"

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Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace for walls and shelves and Sherwin Williams Tobacco stain for oak counter top

Tile is Roca-Flow White 3"X 12"

Miss Courtney back with another collection for the Dish Nook

Benjamin Moore Blue Hydrangea

for a pop of my favorite French Blue

Miss Courtney helped with a decision, which runner to add to the Dish Nook. I loved her suggestion...

This was one of those projects that just seemed to never end. Just little things holding up work, ordering materials that took forever to come in. I am very pleased with how it turned out. I would have liked to have a little more space but not possible with this footprint. Now, I would imagine you are asking, where is she storing her food!  I'll share that with you next time. 

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Now for the Giveaway

As always, The Traveling Tote girls want to thank you for following along with our adventures. For a chance to win this fabulous MacKenzie-Childs eyeglass case just leave a comment with 

Patti @ Pandora's box

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 I hope you will visit my Tale of the Traveling Tote friends for more fun adventures!

Debbie with Miss Aurora @ Mountain Breaths 

Emily with Miss Courtney Childs@ The French Hutch   

Linda P with Miss Lola @ Life and Linda

Patti with Miss Kenzie @ Pandora's Box  

Rita with Miss Luna C @ Panoply 

Sarah with Miss Merri Mac @ Hyacinths for the Soul

Jackie and Miss Madi K @ Purple Chocolat Home

Ricki Jill and Countess De Monet @ The Bookish Dilettante  

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Please join us for our next 

Tales of the Traveling Tote post and giveaway

Coming

June 1, 2025

 

Thanks so much for your visit. If you have any questions I'm happy to answer them, just leave your question in comments.  

The French Hutch 

Dish Nook