When One Pantry Isn’t Enough

I like to stock up…  Remember Y2K?  My parents bought a new stand alone food pantry for that and had a couple cabinets of storage on top of that.  I come by it honestly.

So when I saw a post at Classy Clutter with a sliding pantry tutorial to be able to take advantage of the 9 inches(yes a ridiculous 9 inches) between my fridge and the wall, I knew I had to make one of these! Ok, I say, “I” had to make one of these.  It was actually me, the nice man working at Home Depot who cut all the boards and plywood to the correct dimensions, and my husband who helped with some extra disassembly and reassembly that most people won’t have to do.

Right now I have some 12 packs, a bunch of gatorades, juices, and the kids meds out of reach and more in my new pantry and it makes me so happy!

See…

And because of the medicine and some spices being moved from a kitchen cabinet, I had room for some more dishes…  eeee!  My china!  My china!  It was stranded in a box in storage for 5 months. 🙂

I did a couple things different than the Classy Clutter though since I had more space between my fridge and  wall.  So instead of 1″x4″  I used 2″x8″ since I had 9 inches to work with instead of just 4 inches.  Also I wish I would have used the 1″x8″ instead of the 2″x8″ so it would be lighter  and easier to pull out.  When I was in the home improvement store counldn’t remember what thickness I was suppose to use and wish I would have gone with the 1″, but I do like how sturdy this thing is!  Also something to note though in calculating the maximum height of your pantry is to keep in mind whether you bought the 1 inche boards verses the 2 inch boards.  Else your slide out pantry will might be too tall and won’t slide under the upper cabinet…  like my pantry. OOPS!

Yep, I had to pull it out and take off the caster wheels and then remove one of the bottom boards (which for using the 2 inch boards was overkill).  Then I my husband at this point had to reattach the casters and luckily it is short enough now to fit underneath the cabinet.  Whewwww!

For this pantry, I also attached a “stop” to the floor right behind the front wheels of the pantry.  The pantry is just narrow enough that one of my kids could pull the whole thing out beyond the fridge and wall and it could possibly tip over.  I didn’t want to take any risk so I put a little block on the floor right behind the front wheels and screwed it to the baseboard a couple of places.  I do wish I could pull it out further but it’s not worth the risk so for the harder to reach part I put things I’m not using all the time (like cupcake wrappers or the 12 packs are still easily accessible).

Alrighty, now since pictures are worth a thousand words.  Here’s how I made this oh so handy slide out pantry!

First measure the area you are placing the pantry.  Remember to measure the width with consideration of how your baseboards might or might not affect the width.  For the depth keep in mind how the fridge door opens.  I had to make my pantry only as deep as the front of the side of the fridge to the back wall (hope that makes sense).  And for the height, keep in mind whether you are using the 1 inch boards verses the 2 inch boards and also the height of your caster wheels in the overall scheme of things.

Now you don’t have to be any type of artist except one that can draw rectangles.  Yep, that’s it.  If you don’t feel comfortable drawing rectangles ask a 1st grader or another kid to help! ha! Here’s what you draw to figure out what to give the person working at Home Depot to cut out for you…  This is assuming your using 2×4, 2×6, or 2x8s.  If you’re using 1×4, 1×6, or 1x8s, then you’ll need to adjust your drawing and calculations using 0.75″ verses the 1.5″ in the drawing.  (Wondering why it’s called a 1×4 but is actually smaller?  It’s due to the milling done to the board to make it sellable so it comes in the mill as 1″ dimension but goes out a little smaller.)

Alrighty, here’s my progression with the space I had available…

1.  The overall dimensions I had available to work with for height was 6 feet and 0.5inches from the floor to the bottom of the cabinet.  For the width I measured 2 feet and 4 inches.

2.  Now I had to figure out the dimensions for the thin board to go on the back of the pantry.  I knew the width needed to be 2 feet 4 inches.  But the height of the board would need to be the overall height of the pantry minus the height of the caster wheels…  72.5 inches – 3 inches = 69.5 inches     OK, also notice in this drawing I have the top and the bottom 2″x8″ boards drawn in; and the length of these two boards will be 2 feet 4 inches.  These overlap the boards that will be upright.

3.  Hopefully having the picture turned on it’s side won’t mess with your brain too much. Just thought it would be easier to see the equations I used for my calculations.  Ok, now I had to figure out the lengths of the upright 2″x8″ boards.  I did this by taking the height of the backboard 69.5″ minus the thickness of the two top boards which are 1.5 inches each x 2 boards = 3 inches.  So each upright is 69.5 inches – 3 inches = 66.5 inches

4.  Now I needed to figure out the length of the 2″x8″ boards for all the other shelves.  I knew the overall depth of the pantry would be 2 feet 4 inches and the two upright boards are 1.5″ wide each.  So…  2 feet 4 inches – 3 inches = 28 inches – 3 inches = 25 inches or 2 feet 1 inch

5.  Last non artistic diagram!  This is the one you will make to take to the home improvement store.  It will be a list of all the items you will need for them to cut for you… Don’t forget change the dimensions for your specific measurements.

Now I took my list of things I would need to build this beauty to Home Depot and to our storage unit to get the tools.  Included are links to some of these on Amazon (I’m an affiliate and although I get a commission if you purchase through Amazon it doesn’t cost you any more than just going directly to Amazon not through this website.  Please see my disclosure page for more info).

1. Cordless drill with charger – DEWALT DCD771C2 20V MAX Lithium-Ion Compact Drill/Driver Kit (what I swipe from  my husband all the time and it’s handy!)
2. Drill bits – DEWALT DW1354 14-Piece Titanium Drill Bit Set (something else I swipe from my husband)
3. Bosch 27366 PH1, 3-1/2-Inch Length, Extra Hard Titanium Dipped Number 1 Phillips Head Power Insert Bit (phillips head)
4. Hammer – Stanley 51-616 16 Ounce Hickory Handle Nailing Hammer
5. Nails – The Hillman Group 591520 Small Wire Nail and Brad Assortment, 260-Pack
6. Wood Screws
7. Boards and Plywood(see above)
8. Caster wheels quantity of 4
9. Handle to pull out pantry with
10. Paint
11. Paint brush
12. Paint trays
13. Sandpaper (not completely necessary)
14. Dowel rods the length of your top and bottom boards Qty – one for each shelf board plus your bottom board (I actually didn’t add these to mine but did get them the same length as the bottom board)

Now a quick tutorial for the easy part…  Painting and putting it together.  I laid out all of the parts in different spots around our storage unit and used my Oops paint(which just so happened to be in my favorite color – yellow!).  Painted one side and the edges, flipped everything over, and painted the other side of everything.  For the inside part of the plywood back piece I used some leftover orange paint I had from another project so when the pantry is pulled out it reminds me of my accent color in the rest of our little duplex.

A little tip…  I love these tiny cheap paint rollers for projects like this.  The paint goes on easy and it’s so much faster than a paint brush.  Don’t forget a little tray to pour the paint into…

I laid everything out on the floor in our “entry way”/ living room / dining area of our little duplex.  This is basically the only place I have room to do these projects or outside on the driveway.  So I laid it out like the picture and then decided the space between the shelves by getting groceries or stuff I wanted to place on each shelf and spacing them like that.  I could have measured more and taken more time but I pretty much already knew what I was building this for so just getting the items I’d be storing and using these made it much easier.  Ok, something to note here is if your upright boards aren’t completely straight then it’s hard to make the thing plumb(aka keep right angles where you need them and the thing won’t look like it’s leaning).  I had some curvy boards so I had to work at getting some of the interior boards to go in and hammered them into place with a hammer and a block of wood.  Then the fun part was trying to keep the distance between boards to remain constant from one side of the board to the other.  That’s what probably took the longest in the assembly part for me.

After this was all laid out, I drilled two pilot holes in the top and bottom boards into each upright.  Then I screwed the boards together through the pilot holes.  For each shelf, I drilled two pilot holes through each upright and then screwed the boards together through the pilot holes.  If you choose to use dowels to keep items from dropping off the front of the shelves, this is when you want to put those in by getting dowels cut the width of your pantry(for mine it would  have been 2 feet 4 inches) and drilling holes the diameter of the dowel just above the top of each shelf, sliding them into place, and gluing them into each hole.  Then I put the plywood board where it would cover from the top of the pantry to the bottom board and tacked it on with little nails every 3-4 inches around the outside perimeter and them also to each shelf.  I wanted it to be extra sturdy so things wouldn’t fall off the back of the shelf between it and the plywood.

Lastely, I used the casters as templates and placed them at each corner of the bottom board.  I drilled four pilot holes through the holes on the bottom of each caster plate  and then screwed the caster wheels to the bottom of the pantry.  Another thing I wish I would have done differently is having rigid wheels instead of the ones I got that can swivel.  That would have helped it from going willie nillie when being pulled out(and whacking the wall occassionally – OOPS!).

WHEWWW!  So there you have it!  The pantry is complete!  Please don’t think this project is all that hard.  I just get wordy and tend to want to be as detailed as I can think to be.  Hope this is helpful and a fun project for your home.  Don’t forget to visit Classy Clutter.  Also to note…   She includes dowels to keep items from dropping off the front of the shelves which is important depending on what will be stored in your pantry.  If it was going to be my main canned goods storage or changes to that, then I’ll add the dowels at a later date.

Let me know if you end of making your own pull out pantry or have any questions in the comments below.