Under the pantry: more before and after shots

This is not my pantry, but I like it, so here it is:

In case you missed the post about my pantry, click here to read about how the linoleum counters in the pantry made me squeamish. 

In that post, I didn't even mention what it looked like underneath the counters. It was nasty. So nasty that I honestly doubted we would store food under there. I thought it might be good for cleaning supplies, in a sealed container.

Clearly the landlord didn't touch the pantry when he was renovating the rest of the apartment.

Have you ever hear of Kilz? It's a primer that supposedly neutralizes odors and other gross germs and things that you don't want to spend too much time thinking about. I ended up sweeping and vacumming and scrubbing underneath the pantry, and then painting it with one or two or even three layers of Kilz. And the end result? Not bad at all. It feels fresh and -- dare I say? -- new.

We keep the dry goods on one side. There were some shelves already in there, which you can see in the pictures above. Yeah, they got a lot of paint.

On the other side, we keep extra plates, serving platters and random kitchen things.

There was no shelf on this side, so we went with our cheapest option: a metal contraption from Lowe's. Those things are functional, but they suck hard when it comes to putting them together.

The lower half is not as pretty as the upper half, but hey, it's not to be overlooked!