New Pantry

For awhile now, I've kept all our extra food out on some chrome shelving in the garage. This worked out ok because the kitchen isn't too far from the garage but we recently took on an unwanted boarder who helped his fury little self to some of our dry goods. I also noticed that certain items weren't staying fresh out there, even when they weren't opened. We are about to finally fix our garage for good (I hope) so I asked the dear hubs if he wouldn't mind if I threw in a little project before we started on the garage and he agreed it was a good one.

I'm now the proud new owner of an awesome custom pantry.

And here is is with the doors all open to one side:

Here's a picture I took of this wall before we moved in (and replaced the light, redid the ceiling and got furniture):

This was my first big drywalling job so I'm not thrilled with how the cubby turned out on the end but I'm glad I did it, I'm sure once I figure out what to do with that space, it'll look really neat. For now, it'll sit empty until inspiration hits. I'm thinking of creating a command center but I'm afraid it'll get cluttery looking.

The finished outside dimensions of the closet are 102 inches long by 15 inches deep. I built the space just slightly deeper than an Ikea Billy bookcase because I was able to get the two tall ones off Craigslist for $30. I picked up the center one in the as-is section at Ikea for about the same price. The two tall ones had no backs on them so I took the backing off the short one. I prefer to see the wall through the shelves anyway.

I stocked my pantry with fresh canned produce from the garden and the things I like to buy-up on when I shop sales:

Would you believe those awesome jars on that lower shelf there are also from Ikea? I'm sure you know what that means - the didn't cost an arm and a leg. They're part of the new Korken line (I think it's new anyway) and they start at $2.99 each. There were three different sizes available at my store in Renton, WA.

As you can see, the cucumbers I grew in my garden have been turned into pickle. Yum!

If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you've probably picked up on the fact that I don't pay full price for anything so I promise to do a post dedicated solely to the barn door track hardware really soon. All the parts were from either Home Depot or Lowe's so the setup most definitely did not cost me an arm and a leg.

Here's a quick breakdown on where the materials for this project came from:

Doors - Second Use
Barn Door Hardware - Home Depot and Lowe's
Sliding Closet Door Hardware - Home Depot
Lumber and drywall - Dunn Lumber
Tall Bookcases - Craigslist
Short Bookcase - Ikea as-is section

As I said, I'll dedicate a separate post to the hardware and will be sure to include lots of detail pictures. I'm absolutely loving how this turned out.

UPDATE: Here's that how-to post!

Thank you for reading,
Julie



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