Ever dread making supper because you just stand in front of your messy pantry and wonder what the heck you can make, even though you’re staring at a ton of food but have no idea what’s all in there? Yep, that’s me right about now. I’m so ready to start the next phase of our home cleanup with the DIY walk-in pantry!
As we continue through our home remodeling in the kitchen area, unfortunately, my once very organized pantry got attacked by us taking everything out of the cabinets that would no longer need to hold food, and threw it into the pantry, with the idea that we were going to go through it that weekend.
Well…. that was about 3 months ago… or maybe more…. I’m being generous to myself.
I like my pantry, it’s plenty big for us.
I mean, this is no Khloe Kardashian pantry, that’s for sure. Not a fancy walk-in or even a step in for that matter. Just a couple of doors and some shelves that we made.
But, because it’s not HUGE, we do need to keep it organized. Today I’m tackling that, finally!
First, I need to remove everything so I can see what I all have and evaluate expiration dates to make sure we properly rotate and use anything that needs to be eaten ASAP.
Next, onto organizing the food. For me, it makes sense to put all the pasta-type items, carby items, cereals and such together. Then I will put the canned goods, beans, corn, soups and taco items. We have a lot of dog treats, toys and other items for them that I want to remain in the pantry as well. I will also organize all baking and refillable items together. Finally, will be snacks and party crackers, etc.
Here was where I looked at the groups and to see what I could put into more convenient containers to grab and go or to better store them.
Then, I can put back onto the shelves.
This is where I got a bit sidetracked and decided, you know what? I CAN have a walk-in pantry. I just need to cut my shelves!!
And so – I did.
I looked at how the shelves were in the pantry and used a couple bigger boxes like cereal and potatoes to see how far to come on from the sides and from the back.
The dimensions I did was:
9” in on each side
10” in from back
This allowed the perfect spacing for boxes to line up on the back and put items comfortably on the sides allowing a “just big enough” area to walk in.
I put each board on top of 2 horses and measured in the 9” and 10” and used a table saw to cut.
I then used a jigsaw to clean up the inside corners and then a hand sander to sand all edges including the corners to give them a slight rounded edge.
Here’s the before and after:
