Butler's Pantry

Who ever heard of a butler's pantry? I sure had no idea what it was until recently. When we were building the house, our layout had the option for a "butler's pantry" between the dining room and kitchen. Now, as you can imagine, it was pretty pricey. You had to upgrade to the same cabinets and counter top as what was in the kitchen, and since we went all out in the kitchen, this would have been a huge expense. Plus, there was only one option available. You couldn't add a space for a wine frig or change out the upper cabinets, so it was very restricting and not what we wanted anyway. Made it easy to say no.

When the builders were installing the kitchen cabinets, apparently they had an "oops" moment with two cabinets, in turn making them damaged goods. These cabinets couldn't be used so they just put them out in the garage to be taken out with the trash. H and I were lucky enough to stop in that same day to check on the progress of the house and we saw these two cabinets in the garage. We then checked out the kitchen and the entire space was full with cabinets already installed. Very confused, we went back into the garage and checked them out, there was no visual damage, so we decided to ask what the heck they were doing there and if they were not going to be used, if we could keep them? Sure enough, the builder told us they were trash and if we wanted them we just had to haul them away. Yup, we got two free cabinets in excellent condition, and we knew exactly where we would put them - the butler's pantry!

So months and months later, well after moving in, H decided he was going to install the cabinets. Never having done anything like this before he watched lots of youtube videos and called his dad numerous times to get advice. Took him the better part of a day but they are finally in! Annnnnd he did an excellent job! They are level and in the prefect spot to leave just enough room for a wine frig : )

Here he is working hard on the installation with Pepper, Daddy's little helper. She wouldn't leave his side while he was working. She even took naps right outside the gate, so sweet! She had a minor bike injury, more on that later, which is why she has a bandage on her leg, but she did make a full recovery!

So after the cabinets were in we had to switch the door on the one cabinet to open the other way, and realign one of the drawers. This was probably the "damage" that was done previously which is why they weren't used in the kitchen. But, with a little elbow grease they look good as new! Once they were in we had to find granite that matched what we already had in the kitchen. Now, it didn't need to be exact because they aren't side by side (thankfully) but they still needed to be similar. So off we went to the local marble and granite store looking for the perfect slab.

This was MUCH harder than expected. Santa (or St.) Ceceila comes in so many variations. Our granite in the kitchen is a bit lighter with a lot of black veining, apparently hard to find. Awesome. So we finally found a slab that would work for us, and it was a remnant which made it even cheaper (huge bonus)! H made the template using cheap hardboard we purchased from Home Depot and a hot glue gun, yes, very high tech. But by making the template ourselves it saved us easily $200. Then, a few weeks later we had in installed. We even were able to talk them down from $300 to $150 on the install since there were no cutouts and no corners to cut. $150 saved on installation, plus the $200 for the template, plus the free cabinets, we easily saved over a thousand dollars on this project, making us very happy homeowners : )

Once the granite went in, all we had to do was find a wine frig that fit ~ 15 inches. Tight fit, but totally doable! We did some searching around. Spent many weekends at Sears, Circuit City, PC Richards, you name it, we went to see what they had in stock. Everything for that size space was way over our budget. Apparently, this size is a common custom wine frig size, custom = expensive. Took us forever to finally agree on something but we actually found one online from Best Buy. It was the right dimensions, right price and the handle even matched the hardware we purchased for the kitchen, total bonus! We also just so happened to have a $250 gift card from credit card points to Best Buy that we didn't know what to do with. What better way to spend it then on an unnecessary appliance. Well, in this case very necessary. Mama loves her wine!

So we ordered the frig, is was delivered, and H and I installed it. Voila, butler's pantry complete! Well, almost. We still have to decide what we want to do with the top half. We would both love to do upper cabinets, but when we priced them out they were about $1500. Way more than we can afford or want to spend. Right now I am thinking we are going to hang these two shelves I have from our apartment in the city. I got them from Pottery Barn and I just love them! Perfect for a wine bar. I have yet to hang them but you can check them out here on their website. I would also like to hang the fingerprint tree from our wedding on the other side. I figure it is a good conversation piece. I drew it myself (saving a ton of money) and it turned out to be a great way to document all our friends and family that attended the wedding. A great memento that I cannot wait to frame and hang now that I have the perfect place for it!

Here is the bulter's pantry as it stands now. Check back later for the final reveal, once the area is painted and the shelves are hung : )

looking from the kitchen

looking from the dining room

I am so excited to actually use this space. It will be great for entertaining and is a great transitional space between the dining room and kitchen. Hopefully we will be able to try it out for our next gathering!

Check back later for updates!

JP