My New Butler's Pantry - Before and After!

When I moved into my 1930's Royal Barry Wills Colonial four years ago I was certain the room the real estate listing indicated as "small office off kitchen" would someday turn back into the Butler's Pantry it was originally intended to be. The room measures 9' X 8', and because of the way the lot is graded it has 9 foot ceilings and a lovely, large window. Over the years the previous owners removed the original cabinetry and moldings.

As you can guess, I had grand visions (and a limited budget)!

I wanted it to be an office and a real working pantry -storage for platters, serving pieces, my mixer, and a place to roll pastry crust. I wanted to hide away my microwave, have filtered hot and cold water. We needed file cabinets for family organization and a place for the family computer and hard drive. I wanted to be able to sit in this Pantry/Office and blog. I wanted to showcase my mothers heirloom, turn of the century China. And, I insisted that it look original to the house but with an updated feel. Here is an inspiration photo of the glass front cabinets. I also wanted honed marble counters for rolling pastry. Because my kitchen cabinets were white I wanted the pantry to cabinets to be different, but not wood, so I wanted a gray/green color.

Cote de Texas

Here is my inspiration photo for the color of the cabinets. Many of you may recognize this kitchen, it is Sally Wheat's Kitchen from Cote De Texas "Stalking the Wheat's" post. Joni was kind of enough to put me touch with Sally who shared her color with me. Do not miss touring Sally's house. It is incredible - she has wonderful taste and talent! Here the link: http://cotedetexas.blogspot.com/2008/04/stalking-wheats.html.

After four months of searching I finally found my marble. Here is my slab of Calcutta before it was installed.

I wanted period style hardware. I loved these from Christopher Peacock. I ended up finding a nearly exact replica from Cliffside Industries. Lucky find! Vertex
As a family, we drink gallons of bottled water. At my husband's urging we found this bottleless water filtration system from Vertex. It heats and cools the water and connects directly to a water line. No more lugging bottles or polluting the landfills and the kids make their own hot cocoa and cup a soup instantly.

I found a wonderful general contractor and cabinetmaker who both were able to work with in my budget constraints. We had some mishaps with other subs, which my very skilled general contractor was able to hide/fix, so hopefully you can't notice them.

Here is the before:
And After: The Butler's Pantry! The cabinets go all the way to ceiling and the molding wraps around the room. Walls are real wood tongue in groove beadboard. You can't see that the counters are honed, nor can you see the bevels on the glass. The color is more gray than green and the counters have much more contrast than these pictures show. The microwave is hidden in the the cabinet in the bottom left of the photo. Drawers have platter and serving pieces. The appliance garage on the left holds my Kitchen Aid mixer & Cuisinart. It's still too new, so I haven't rolled out pie crust yet -but I will in time.

This side is my office area. Cabinets house file drawers and the hard drive. The appliance garage on the right has shelves for bills. The cabinet on the bottom right of the photo has a drawer for each family member - this is a handy place for keeping homework and school things organized. The far right is the bottleless water cooler - we love it!
So if you ever wondered where I am when I am blogging - here it is! I think I accomplished all I had hoped. My husband calls it my little jewel box - and really it is! Hope you like it!