Oyster Prints & Pantry Progress

Last week I mentioned I ordered these frames for my oyster water color prints, and I have pictures to share! They came in late last week and I hung them over the weekend. We have had a few bad experiences in the past when hanging art grouped together like this and it has been so hard to get everything hung evenly and level. But these were so easy! They came with paper templates, of the exact size of the frames and exactly where to put your nails. It took me all of 5 minutes to tape the templates on the wall, make sure they were straight, and I nailed straight through the paper. I am so happy with how they turned out! I love the way the brushed gold frames pop against the wall color.

In other news, the hubby and my father-in-law got started over the weekend on our new pantry! 

This is the one space in our house that has never functioned well and has probably changed the most (frequently) since we bought our home 6 years ago. I would describe this room as a mud/laundry/pantry/catch- all room. It's not pretty, and we generally keep the door closed to it so we don't have to look at it. To make things worse, when we were building the addition, we found out that our water heater (previously stored in a water closet) was not to code because it was too close to our electrical panel. 

And that brings me to this lovely drawing I made... 

This little nook used to house the above industrial shelves that we used as our pantry and miscellaneous storage, but now holds our water heater on the right side and is no longer big enough for the shelving unit. So we brainstormed for a new pantry solution, in keeping with the layout that we have, and this is what we came up with...

We added bi-fold closet doors and W and his dad framed out and put drywall up for a pantry. You can kind of catch a glimpse on the far right side of the picture of that white cabinet on the wall. It's small and just houses mostly tools and detergent, but it will be coming down so the doors can open properly. Most of that stuff will be moved into what used to house the water heater before we had to move it.

He finished up the drywall this week and now we just need to get shelves put in, and paint the doors and walls to clean up the look. 

It's still not perfect, but it's the best scenario this room as seen to date. W and his dad did a great job of the pantry and when it's all said and done, I think we will really enjoy the new layout. 

Do any of you have a room in your house that just doesn't function properly? What did you do to fix it?  I would love to hear about it!