Friday, April 15, 2011

Pantry near-perfection

We absolutely love the Meritage home we built here in Centerpointe and we would not trade it for any other design, BUT, nothing in this life is ever perfect. 

Meritage is currently building plans created by a renowned Austin architectural firm called Kipp Flores.  I like to joke that Mr. Kipp and Mr. Flores must be a couple of skinny boys who spend a lot of time eating granola bars while mountain biking in the Texas Hill Country, because they sure did not place a high priority on food-related storage in their designs.  The pantries in many of their homes, even some of the larger plans, are about the size of post-war broom closets, and are about as functional.  
...but it's only a couple of inches wider than the stove!!!!!!
The man of my dreams must have gotten mighty tired of hearing me scream,

"Oh my God!!! 

every time I got frustrated and couldn't find the right cooking supplies buried within our dark, tiny pantry space, because look at the wonderful thing that he did for us:
Meritage did not offer a lighting option in the pantry and, even if it had, it probably would have been an overhead, which would not work in a space with solid shelves casting shadows on everything below them. 

Here, said man of my dreams retrofitted our pantry with a vertical (not overhead) stack of LED lights that are triggered by a magnetic switch embedded at the top of the door frame (see the round sensor).  Open the door, and the former black hole is flooded with the best possible light!!

To increase storage space, we installed a platinum Elfa rack on the door.  Elfa is by far the best product of its type I have ever used.  Worth every penny, in my opinion.   

When life hands you lemons, engineer some lemonade, a task made easier when you actually have light and an organizational structure sufficient to locate the ingredients. 
;-)

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