Pantry Talk...

noooooooo, I said "Pantry", not what ya'll thought I said :)

several weeks back I decided to be Suzy Homemaker (my middle name is Suzanne so I can say that and it be true...well, my last isn't House or Home or Shanty so it is half-true), delve into the chest freezer, the two pantries and the cabinets, make a list of everything food-related or household-care related and...

and what? I realized after spending the better part of two days getting this list together that I had no clue how to keep a running up-to-date list of all of these things...

a couple of grocery store trips blew by and I realized my hard work was oh-so-quickly becoming just an exercise in wasting time (and not Fun Time Wasting like on-line shoe shopping for a kitten-heeled pointy-toed pair of leopard print pumps)...I needed a way to keep track of this stuff...

now, in my household binder (DO NOT LAUGH) I have some sheets from organizedhome.com for keeping track of pantry items...but repeatedly printing those lists out whenever I need to update is not my idea of Fun or Frugal (printer ink is freakin' expensive...and those leopard print pumps aren't cheap)...and since I obsess about sloppy lists with cross-outs and write-overs this qualifies as An Issue...
I slogged through Office Max and H/M and looked on-line tryin' to find a sleeve (plastic page protector) where I could print out my lists, insert the lists into the sleeve and then mark the sleeve...but here is where the going got rough...I wanted to be able to have the marks be both smudge-proof and removable so I could update the lists...

I tell ye such a product does not exist*...

Bright Idea Time...

after stewing about this for a week or two, I had my Bright Idea...

our second pantry doors need cosmetic help anyway...they're just plain ol' luan doors with a coat of plain ol' soft white paint on them...we put them up to make the second pantry area once the washing machine and dryer moved on out to the garage...

I've been wonderin' what to do about the pitiful doors...and now I know...

I'm turning the doors into chalkboard doors so I can mark my pantry list there, hang a piece of chalk on a string and involve the Whole Household in keeping the list up-to-date...

look...it's my dream, leave me alone...

the beginnings of the project...lines courtesy of DH who can Draw a Straight Line unlike my Crooked Line self...(please note the new little hook at the top)and I slopped the chalkboard paint on this morning...I'm leanin' towards painting the white area some nice wild colour....like my leftover Autumn Ridge (a wonderful orange that I used in the dining room)...and then there is leftover quarter-round in the garage to hide edge around my uneven chalkboard spaces...

naturally, it was only after putting the first big swipe of Chalkboard Paint on one of the doors that a word flashed through my mind...

Erasermate*....

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*or maybe it does exist and I just don't know how to Google It

*however, now that I see Erasermates are made by Gillette, the point was moot before it arrived in my brain...