Carriage Corner Improvements
We have had several big, home improvement projects on the to-do list and a few smaller projects as well. One of the big projects was to have Mr. Carriage Corner take out the wall inside the closet at the top of the stairs, behind the barn door and create more usable storage. If you’ve ever wondered what’s behind the barn door, or even looked – let me tell you, it was nothing exciting. According to the original floor plans of the bed and breakfast, there was originally a bathroom in this closet! I was so excited, I had visions of putting a powder room right off the Common Area until I realized they took the toilet and sink when them made Lonestar’s bathroom bigger. ::whompwhomp::
So Butler’s Pantry, It is
I have a lot of dishes. Some might consider it a problem. When we moved from Seattle to purchase Carriage Corner, there were at least 4 sets of china packed very carefully into boxes. Since arriving, I have acquired 5 more sets. Some were purchased out of necessity – yes, it really is a necessity to have beautiful white dishes to serve on, and some where just because I *needed* Christmas dishes (which for the record, get used from Thanksgiving through Valentine’s Day). And I’ve just had a lovely guest message me about another beautiful set of china – she will be delivering it during her next visit.
Also, one of the things that is very important to us is that there is enough room for everyone to sit in the Common Area. There is nothing we like better than hearing people getting to know each other over coffee while we are fixing breakfast. Or walking through in the evening and stopping to have a little chat about how your day went. With that in mind, it made sense to move the dishes out of the china cabinet and replace that piece of furniture with a church pew or some sort of bench/love seat, etc.
Butler’s Pantry Inspiration
I don’t know about you – but when I have an idea, I head to Pinterest. You can click on the link and follow us over there too! One of the things that was important for me – was for this new pantry area to really work well. I didn’t want to have to move things to get to other things. I knew I wanted a little bit of closed storage, but mostly open storage and lots of it. I would be nice if there was room to store some of the small kitchen appliances that aren’t used daily and don’t need to take up valuable counter real estate.
So, I spent plenty of time dreaming on pinterest – all of these images are from Pinterest and have been pinned in our Butler’s Pantry Board.
Now to Explain to Mr. Carriage Corner
So, once I had a really good idea of how I wanted the butler’s pantry to look, I had to get Mr. Carriage Corner on board. Let me tell you, that’s not always the easiest. I will often share ideas with guests and also our daughter who is the owner of DBK home. Krystle is responsible for the color theme throughout Carriage Corner and is helping us put together the color theme for the exterior. She often rearranges art on the walls when she is here, just because.
If you’ve ever has the chance to “look behind the barn door,” you will have seen the weird walls and the old linen closet that was still in the hall pantry closet. That all had to come out – because that wall that created the door opening was in my way! It was stopping me from having long expanses of shelving that I could fill with dishes and pretty jars of food.
Well, during this time of no guests, I was able to get him around to my view of things and the demolition of the current cupboard happened. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos of the old awkward closet. I did take a few of the demolition and the construction, but I’ll share those soon in the Butler’s Pantry Revealed! post. Meanwhile – why not check out the our guest rooms and make plans to escape to Amish Country?