Project: Pantry

I wanted to share our latest project: our pantry. It was a huge thing for us. We had these crazy built in shelves in our garage that were dark, scary and strangely shaped. R built me a nice new pantry by walling off a weird exterior porch on the side of our house, turning it in to an approx. 7 x10 ft. bonus area! Lucky me! We tried some of these pine shelves, but they weren't the most efficient use of space and weren't the most sturdy.

I loved the look of Elfa shelving from the Container Store, but I don't have that kind of budget. So I was thrilled to find Ikea had a comparable product! The Broder system. What I love about it is that we could customize our shelving to fit perfectly into our space. We could adjust the space between shelves. Installation was a breeze- said R. He just screwed the suspension rails into the studs, once he had trimmed them to fit. Then he hung the posts from the suspension rails and added brackets where we wanted them. Then he cut 1x12 pine boards to fit our space, screwed them into the brackets, and presto! A perfect pantry.

R and I went with shorter posts from Ikea so they would fit in our trunk (they have ones for floor to ceiling) which meant we needed twice as many suspension rails, but I think it makes it more sturdy anyway. And we bought the 1 x 12 boards locally so we wouldn't have to haul those bad boys so far. R is finishing the pine shelves with tung oil.

I am still arranging stuff, he helped me get everything put away so it wouldn't be all over our kitchen table. So I didn't have time to think through the ideal placement for everything! I would like to make it cuter with some canisters, baskets, labels, etc. but all in good time! This is a huge start for me.