Updating an uninspiring pantry painted pink began with white paint and a beautiful toile wallpaper. Adding new black iron double hooks to hold spare keys was the next step. A tip for simplifying where to drill the holes for the screws is based on a brilliant tip for an easy way to hang a print or mirror on a wall.
While the pantry is small, the size of a closet, updating it with all my plans is more like updating a large room over several weeks. Not because of the size of the pantry, but because each new change sparked an idea for yet another change.
Take a look at how the pantry looked BEFORE updates began earlier this summer.
T O I L E P A N T R Y U P D A T E
K E Y H O O K S
B E F O R E
Pink paint and a beautiful toile-papered pantry on Instagram inspired plans for a pantry update last summer. Carrying out the plan was delayed until this summer.
You can read about the first step, major changes with paint and toile wallpaper, at French Country Pantry Makeover.
The latest change to the pantry shown in this post was adding new hooks for spare keys. The pantry originally had a plastic key holder for storing extra house keys and sets of spare car keys.
Beautiful toile wallpaper and white painted shelves called for a more elegant way to store spare keys than on a plastic key holder.
New black iron hooks with a gorgeous raised design were bought last year around the same time the new wallpaper was bought. They were stored in a 'safe place' until the pantry renovation was to begin, but could not be located when actual work on the pantry makeover began this summer.
K E Y H O O K E A S Y I N S T A L L A T I O N
I found the hooks last weekend while storing something else in the same 'safe place.' Does that happen to anyone else? Do you forget where you put something when it is stored for a year?
The silver lining to misplacing the hooks was reading a brilliant tip online for an easy installation of prints and mirrors. With a little modification, installing the screws for three hooks made the job much easier.
Finding the misplaced hooks and reading about the installation tip caused a little dancing here . . . but not the same dancing shown on the wallpaper.
⓵ After removing the pantry's contents and shelves, painter's tape was applied to the bottom edge of the shelf support where the new hooks were to go.
⓶ Then the THIRD hook was held at the back of the shelf support on top of the painter's tape to determine the best placement. The hooks had to fit beneath the shelf above. The third hook had to have enough room at the back wall for slipping a key ring over the hook.
⓷ Using a pencil, a mark was made through the back screw hole to locate the position for the hole.
⓸ Then the FIRST hook was held at the front of the support to determine its placement. This hook had to be back far enough for the door and its wire shelves to clear the hook when the door is closed.
⓹ Once again, a pencil was used to mark through the first screw hole at the place to drill.
⓺ With the FIRST hook still held in place by hand, and by visually determining what appeared to be level, the pencil was used to mark the place for the second screw hole in the first hook.
⓻ Then the blue painter's tape was removed from the shelf support and taped down to the kitchen counter. Using a yard stick as a guide, a line was drawn through the first and last pencil marks. This determined whether or not the second pencil mark was in the correct spot for the first and last hooks to be level with each other.
You can see the second hole is a little off the level line.
⓼ After placing the tape on the counter, the THIRD hook was placed over the pencil mark for its last hole, and the first hole of the THIRD hook was marked through the screw hole. The SECOND hook was held along the drawn pencil line to place it halfway between the FIRST and THIRD hooks. The SECOND hook's screw holes were placed along the drawn pencil line, and the pencil marked the drill spots through the screw holes.
⓽ Once all the screw holes were marked on the painter's tape, the tape was applied to the wood shelf support again, carefully aligning the bottom edge of the tape to the bottom edge of the shelf support. The photo shown above illustrates this step.
⓾ Holes were drilled through the painter's tape for all of the screws, the tape was removed from the shelf support, and the hooks were screwed into place.
F I N I S H E D K E Y H O O K S
v o i l à
(there you have it)
The installed hooks fit under the shelf above, are evenly spaced; the first hook clears the closed pantry door, and the third hook has enough clearance room to hang key rings at the back.
Using blue painter's tape made installing the hooks much easier than trying to measure and to screw them in place one at a time.
An elegant pantry with elegant black hooks calls for elegant key rings made from vintage silverware handles. The first key ring is made from a vintage French silverplate fork found at a flea market in Paris. The other two key rings are made from vintage American silverplate.
The French key ring with a door key usually hangs from an inside door lock in one of the living room's French doors. A spare house key has been added to the last key ring shown. Whenever out-of-town overnight guests come, they can have the key to use during their stay.
The hooks also hold our sets of spare car keys, but are not shown. I wanted to enjoy how pretty the new hooks looked with the silverplate key rings for a few minutes before adding not-so-pretty car keys.
Multiple sets of keys fit on each new black hook giving us plenty of space for all our spare keys to stay in a central location in the kitchen pantry, and behind a closed door for security.
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I love how the pantry looks with its new white paint, toile wallpaper, white canisters, and black double hooks for keys.
More updates are coming for the pantry makeover. New mortar for the brick and stone wall is ready for a fresh coat of paint, and the hunt is on for a new light fixture. There may be a little wood molding also in the works.
S O U R C E S
Black Scroll Double Hooks
Vintage American Silverplate Key Rings
Both of these will be available in Botanic Bleu's French Country Christmas Event in December.
