Before and After....(OK, just After)

I really hope it's OK to participate in both Boomama's Before and After and Kelli's Show and Tell...but since they both fell on the same day and my show and tell is home improvement, I thought I'd go ahead...and hope I don't get any blogging citations.

In fact, I'm doing this kind of last minute...

But because I worked my little heart out last weekend, let me show you this first project:

The dreaded....PANTRY

I know Boomama ideally wanted Before and After (hence the name!) but I can't show you the before pictures...partly because I didn't think to take them when I started tossing things out right and left on the spur of the moment, but mostly because it would just scare you.
The bottom half is the kids' art cabinet.

Maybe you even think this should look more like the before shot, but believe me, what it looked like before was a terrible thing.
In fact, it was pretty downright dangerous. Whenever we tried searching for a glue stick or some play dough, things would tumble out and the children would have to run for cover.
Bless their hearts, they never complained...but last weekend, when my husband took them out for the entire day, I suddenly surprised myself by pulling everything out.
I think half the kitchen floor was covered in debris... and there was a moment when I sat in the middle of it and wondered what I had done! But I sorted and sorted, and threw away half of it all...and then organized the rest!

Just look how the paint is lined up...it's a beautiful thing!

Now, the top half is where we keep both food and meds...
This, too, was a disaster.
I could reveal the part of the motivation for cleaning this top half was because we have been invaded my horrible pantry moths...but that would be too much information, so I won't.
But needless to say, my husband helped me with this part, and we bleached and cleaned, bought nice little air-tight containers for our pasta...
and here is the result:

You may wonder how long this pantry will stay organized...I can't promise anything but it's been a week, and so far so good for all of us! Even the kids put things back in the right places, grateful that they're now safe from falling playdough.

Oh, and let me show you one last thing...
We started painting our stark, white entry way wall a few weeks ago a nice, rich cranberry color...

As you can see, we need to touch up the door frame and there are a few places, too, on the wall that I want to touch up. Because of time, this has been "a little at a time" project, and it was also the first time the whole family joined in.
Which can be attested to by a few little blotchy areas. Oh well...it's the togetherness in a project that counts, right?

Thank you for stopping by and seeing our recent little endeavors.

For more home improvement projects, stop by Boomama's
And for more Show and Tells, go over to There is no place like Home.