Making Do

I have a confession to make.  You know how I have been complaining about the lack of cabinet space on my one kitchen wall (if not read about it here)?  Well yesterday I finally did something about it.  You're probably asking "so what is the confession?"  I did the following project because my in-laws were coming to spend the night and I didn't want them to see my horrid wall.  Now Jeff has been telling me all week (as I frantically clean the house all day, every day) that they don't care.  He's right.  But somehow I feel that I need to have a nice house when they have driven all the way over here and are doing all kinds of handy stuff (more about that later).

I spent all afternoon on this project, and it was not little.

 Before

 

After

  OK I may not have gotten rid of the clutter (it is there under the cloth) but at least I hid it.

Here is the process I went through:

Empty shelves:
This was no easy task.  I have a LOT of stuff.  One of my problems is that I like to think I'm healthy, so I buy a bunch of dried beans and grains, and then proceed to NEVER cook them.  I have beans since my college days.  I can't get rid of them (even this time I just put them back).  I keep thinking on day I will eat them.  One day I will remember to soak them the day before (they are so old now they need to soak for days) and then cook a fabulous meal of Lima beans and quinoua.  The sad truth is it's never going to happen.

Someone come to my house...I need a bean intervention.

I also have a lot of other stuff that I do use.  Like my baking stuff, and triscuts (I love my Triscuts, when I went to India I brought them with me, my sister thought I was nuts). 

Random stuff I DO eat.

Spices, I have a lot of spices too.

BEANS

BEANS

And more BEANS

My kitchen was litterally covered with food.  How do I have so much food?  It was baffling.

Next I had to clean said shelves...and they were dirty.  I don't think I ever dusted these shelves, how could I with so many beans in the way?

You can actually see where I kept my stuff.  This is really bad.  I'm embarrassed to write this.  So I cleaned it.

Then I had the brilliant idea to cover up my beans, and the rest of my food, with a table cloth I bought but discovered was too small for my dining table.

I attached the cloth to the underside of the second shelf from the top like this:

 I then stapled it in place with my hand-dandy staple gun, and....

Now I have a curtain to cover my "pantry."  

Now for me this is making do.  When you look at it you can tell it is a cloth stuck up there, but it does its job.  I come from a family that had floor to ceiling tie-die curtains in their living room, so this is pretty good by our standards.  I would much prefer to have the kitchen cabinets Jeff and I got a quote on, but that is not going to happen.  At least not right now.  So... the shelves look a little better and I can rest knowing the whole world (besides you of course) don't know I have a bean problem.  

I even got a little extra space out of the deal for our coffee maker and soda maker (that thing is really cool, maybe one day I will tell you about it).  

Under the curtain?  It is not SO bad.  I have made a place for different items.  I added a lazy Susan for the various liquids (vinegar, soy-sauce, oil, etc.) and I got generally organized it all a little better.  I can't show you any pictures because I ran out of light.  And anyway - I made the curtain so no one would see behind it, so why would I show you? (jk)     

One last before and after just for bragging rights: 

Before

After

 

I'm happy.  I'm making do.  In these hard times, with school loans looming, this is pretty good.  

What about you guys, what do you do to make do? (that's a lot of DOs)