Having the serving window cut out felt like we were going to get this thing finished fast but it wasn’t to be.

Believe it or not we were only 5 days away from the wedding while all this was happening. People were arriving early to help and we still had plenty to do.

It was and is great fun to have our own little coffee trailer. Thanks to my dear son, Wesley for making it happen.

Then we went to see my son one afternoon at a rental he owns and was working on cleaning and fixing up. The tenants had moved out quite hurriedly (actually was hauled off to jail :/), the sister had taken all she wanted leaving the rest for my son to dispose of and guess what just happened to be left behind…? A very run down, falling apart little trailer.

Bells started clanging in Serenity’s head when she saw the trailer. Ding, ding, ding… “this could be your coffee trailer for the wedding.”

Neither her brother or her daddy caught her vision but they promised to keep it for her.

Russell hauled it out to the house after a few months went by. Believe it or not, before we brought it out to the house we had someone approach us wanting the trailer for themselves!

Wesley sweetly took on the job of fixing up the trailer for Serenity. We were so happy to have someone commit to helping us out. It took Wesley many hours and although he wasn’t able to fix it up like he really wanted (hubby didn’t want to put too much $$$ into it) it still looked so nice when he finally finished up.

Part II of the coffee trailer renovation coming…

Here’s what’s been suggested thus far.

Once a name has been decided I want to make a sign to hang on the exterior, so we’ll see how that goes.

On to my pantry pictures!

When we first began the process of building the pantry.

In the painting stage…

And now…

No food will be in here as I mentioned before, just supplies and the things I need to host a large crowd.

We built an area just to hang my tablecloths. They had been hanging in my coat closet but no longer!

Please excuse that one lone pant hanger that doesn’t match anything else. I didn’t take the time to make it picture perfect.

Above the tablecloths I wanted to use the space for my place mats and cloth napkins.

An abundance of paper products are stored on the left side of the pantry.

Some small vases I have for the dining tables.

For these platters I am getting some plate holders so that the platters are not stacked one on top of another, making it easy to grab the ones I want to use.

The pegboard wall that I really wanted.

The right side of the pantry holds my large equipment.

And the left side…

The little table at the end of the pantry is very special to me. It was my husband’s grandmother’s and was used to set the wash basin on where everyone would wash their hands before going into the house. I use it quite often when entertaining and I wanted it in a protected and accessible place, thus we planned for it to go in here.

Another project my husband can check off as FINISHED!  I am really thrilled to have this space. Thank you to my sweetheart for his desire for me to have this area and for getting it done.

Linking up with:

Between Naps on the Front Porch

By Stephanie Lynn

Sand & Sisal

Really pantry is not a good name for my room. Maybe you all can help me name it. There will be no food in it but it will have equipment, supplies (paper products, serving implements, platters, etc.) tablecloths and cloth napkins. It’s a storeroom but I want it to sound cuter than that.

Help me out here?

The pantry is long and narrow.  At the far end of the pantry I wanted some pegboard to hang my extra cooking utensils, ice bucket and a very large bowl I have.

Strips of wood were placed on the wall for the pegboard to be screwed into.

But you’ll have to wait to see the finished wall.

Then we had to finish the area where my tablecloths will hang and closet rod brackets were screwed into place.

And here’s a little sneak peak of what I’ve been doing in the “Storeroom”. (Remember, help me out with a name. )

This was an old wire basket my husband picked up from one of our rentals. He couldn’t imagine me wanting it since it was all rusty but I told him that it added to its overall look of charm.

It was quite rusty so I added some material to the inside and placed miscellaneous plastic cutlery into it. All my kids were wondering what the numbers were supposed to mean. They didn’t really care that it was the trend right now but wanted to know what purpose it served. haha

So to make it more acceptable I told them forks were at 1, spoons at 2 and knives at 3.

This is one of my favorite shelves in the pantry.

And I had to add a little chalkboard to the pegboard.

“Never trust a skinny chef.”

And Monday I hope to be able to show you the entire pantry, storeroom, room!

I will be storing my cloth napkins in there. Basically anything I use for large crowds will go into the new pantry.

When I did a search for how most people store cloth napkins it seems to be most commonly done in drawers…

Shelterness

But there will be no drawers so I am going to use baskets.

Newlywed Nest

I hope to have everything placed in there this week if everything goes well. Stay tuned.

]]> https://treasuringthemoments.net/2014/11/03/pantry-progress-update/feed/ 1 https://treasuringthemoments.net/2014/10/31/a-new-pantry-so-exciting/ https://treasuringthemoments.net/2014/10/31/a-new-pantry-so-exciting/#comments Fri, 31 Oct 2014 18:22:57 +0000 http://treasuringthemoments.net/?p=700168 When my husband moved our energy system (inverters & large battery) out to the shed he built just for it, he got the thought to build me an additional pantry. I couldn’t imagine how it would work but he had it figured out in his mind. In my mind I was thinking about the wash basin, the large tool box he has for working on cars and the 2 freezers in the way. Where would they go I wondered since the entire garage is completely full?

But there was a way. The washbasin is no longer and the freezers still have a space in a different location and since the inverters and battery are gone, I found we really do have the room for this pantry. It’s amazing sometimes what can work once you start measuring and if you have vision.

It looks like a nightmare of a mess!!

Then the renovations began. The wall was knocked out. (Previously, on the other side of the wall was our large battery for our off-grid power system.)

 Then it was framed out.

Tiled and grouted…

A ton of electrical wires from our power system had to be taken care of and a light switch rewired since we had moved it. My husband does all the electrical work. He says it’s not difficult at all.

After graduating from high school Wesley worked for a drywalling company for a year so he got to put his skills to good use and drywalled the pantry.

(There’s those electrical wires that had to be taken care of.)

And we my husband is almost finished with the pantry! We’re He’s in the home stretch and we are both excited!

Our backyard in April looked like this.

But then inspiration (through the form of my sister) came and we decided to bring the upper level down to the grass level.

And now we have our own pond… that is when we have rain and until we finish our renovations then it will be something else entirely!

One thing that I need to do is plan how we want to use this space. I have some ideas but I need to really think it through before we start.  So that project (backyard) is awaiting completion and we’ve moved on to other things.

The next project that was started was our solar system. We’ve had solar panels for years but only a few. When we first built our house 19 years ago, solar panels cost $4.40/watt but now the price has gone down to $.58/watt. A true savings for those who are wanting to move towards solar power!

Instead of purchasing a custom-made rack system for our solar panels, my enterprising husband made his own using metal building studs. By doing this he saved about $2,000.

My hubby and son worked together on the project.

But installing the solar panels wasn’t the end of it.

Wires had to be ran to the controllers. And then on top of it all, the inverters and our battery for storing power were taken out of the garage and moved to their own little shed which my husband also built.

And there’s more… but that will have to wait for another day.

It is so exciting to be running our entire house using solar panels! If it’s cloudy out (doesn’t happen a lot in Arizona) or we draw an excessive amount of power (which will happen when we have large crowds) we have the generator that will automatically start and keep us going with power but it’s looking like that may only be 5-6 hours a month versus 120 which results in a huge savings of diesel fuel costs.

We are so pleased and blessed to be able to do this!