My Simple Pantry Build

When we bought our old house and fixed it up, we had a blank slate to work with where we got to make lots of choices to customize it to our liking.

But, we noticed when moving in, there was a large lack of storage on the main floor. For a family of 7, our storage needs go beyond the capacity of our kitchen cabinets.

I REALLY wanted to build a pantry, but I didn’t want to steal space from the dining room. Our house is very old, and has a small second staircase leading from the kitchen upstairs. I don’t really like my kids to use it. It’s pretty steep, plus I would occasionally shove stuff out of sight into that space. Our dog has also made the landing of that staircase his space. But it just seemed like a huge waste of valuable space.

Now, if you’ve known me for any length of time, you know I love me some Pinterest inspiration. I have a whole board dedicated to adorable small pantry set ups. So I dreamed for a while.

Eventually, I decided it was time. I had started collecting all kinds of containers (something my husband will never understand) with a plan in my head to turn that back corner into a glorious “Home Edit” worthy pantry. Yes, like most bored housewives sitting 2020 that was on my binge list.

I don’t like to spend much, so finding things second hand or taking a few trips to the dollar store left me with a variety of containers to use.

The execution:

My husband is NOT a dreamer. So if I want something I can’t just describe it and expect him to get excited about it and start building. I ended up drawing out a detailed plan of exactly what I wanted. It included all the measurements, the list of materials, and two different angles.

That gave him enough of an idea to be willing to go to the store and buy the supplies. And thankfully, having large planks of wood in the kitchen was enough of an inconvenience to force us to complete the project quickly 😉

It took about two days, because – well, kids. We also ran into a major issue with our walls not actually being straight and level. So we had to use some spacers to make our brackets hold the shelves level.

That was by far the hardest part of the build. We would have gotten it done in a day if we didn’t have to deal with that.

After the shelves were built, I got to do the fun part and start filling them. It took several hours because I’m me and wasted it to look perfect. During this phase, my hubby kept me company in the kitchen while studying for his next test to obtain his securities license.

Oh yes, that is a Death Star popcorn popper on the appliance shelf. I also have a lightsaber hand mixer. I know what I like 😉

Since the build, I’ve added some half gallon Mason canning jars to the collection.

I LOVE MY PANTRY!

Sometimes I just stand on the landing step and stare at it like a weirdo, fruitlessly trying to decide what to cook.

I’m already planning my next project for the master bedroom. A few drawers, shelves, and the wine fridge from the dining room. Add a nice little countertop and trim it in to look like a nice entertainment center.

I know, it drives me nuts that the TV isn’t centered too. We have a canopy bed, so if we moved it the bed post would be right in the middle of my husband’s view of the TV. So there it will stay until I get bore enough to reconfigure the whole bedroom. Who knows.