Space-saving Solutions for the Pantry

My biggest achievement of the week is actually hidden behind a closed door. Go figure. But that doesn't make it any less gratifying!

Lately I've grown increasingly frustrated with our cluttered pantry. I've already come to terms with the fact that it will never be a bright, beautiful, Instagram-worthy pantry — but surely I could at least improve upon its current state: 

The issue really boils down to not using the space that efficiently. Although the freestanding red wire shelves have certainly helped by giving me two levels to work with, there was still a lot of vertical space to be taking advantage of. So one night last week I headed to Amazon in search of organization inspiration. 

Home Exterior Painting Decisions: A Gray Area (Part IV)

Someone send help. I've been sucked into a world of grays and I can't get out. If you can't tell by the post title, this situation has gotten a bit out of control. What started out as just three paint swatches grew to five, then ten, and now... 

I've somewhat reined myself in when it comes to buying actual paint samples though — only seven of those (so far). After initially debating between several Sherwin Williams colors in the gray family, I decided I'd be doing myself a disservice if I didn't also check out some Benjamin Moore colors. Upon a visit to the paint department in Ace Hardware, it looked like Ben Moore offered a couple promising gray options: Kendall Charcoal and Chelsea Gray. 

Once I painted these two samples on the house next to those from the first round, I definitely liked the Kendall Charcoal better than SW Peppercorn (which now appeared more blue-ish and too dark). Kendall was like a happy medium between the Peppercorn and Gauntlet Gray.

Bedroom Upgrade: Tuft & Needle Mint Mattress Review (Part I)

This past week, we finally bit the bullet on a long overdue upgrade in our master bedroom: a new mattress! For the past 8+ years, we've been sleeping on an old pillow-top mattress that's not been doing us any favors lately. The more I kept waking up feeling sore and unrested (is that a word?), the more I desperately wanted to replace this thing. Let's face it, I'm not getting any younger and I value my sleepy-time, mmkay?

(Before I continue, this is not a sponsored review for T&N. I just like to document things like this and wanted to share our experience in case anyone else is in a similar situation. Frankly I don't even know if we'll be keeping our new mattress yet!)

I'll spare you the details of the entire decision-making process, but essentially we decided to go with an online mattress company rather than dragging ourselves around to the multitude of mattress stores in town... blame it on the millennial in us.

Home Exterior Painting Decisions: A Gray Area (Part III)

I don't know if you've been following along with my last couple blog posts, but I have a problem and it goes by the name of "Gray." This should come as no surprise to anyone, as I've had plenty of experience with gray paint in our house. This decision feels a little more nerve-racking than usual though, since it involves painting the entire exterior of our house (and paying someone else to do it).

The latest update in the saga is that I've tried out five samples of Sherwin-Williams colors:

• Dovetail
• Classic French Gray
• Peppercorn
• Gauntlet Gray
• Westchester Gray

Home Exterior Painting Decisions: A Gray Area (Part II)

Has anyone else ever tried the Sherwin Williams ColorSnap Visualizer? (No, this isn't an ad for it... just a recent discovery.) Last week I bought a sample of Gauntlet Gray and Dovetail and painted them on the side of our house to test them out. 

The Dovetail, while a nice color in general, was way too light for what we want. So of those two samples, Gauntlet Gray won out. But I still struggled with wanting to try out some more gray colors before settling on it. 

Gauntlet Gray... winner of Round 1

Rather than making another trip to the SW store right away (where I would inevitably spend forever debating between swatches), I decided to try this Visualizer tool first to see if it would clear up any of my gray confusion. I'm not sure if it made the situation better or worse... and the more I look at these mock-ups, the more they all start to look the same.