Yesterday my mom and I went to Bed Bath and Beyond for a couple things, and wound up buying things we weren't even thinking about because the store we went to doesn't have makeup and toiletries. Since I had nothing planned for the day, other than phone calls, and because it was early, we took our time wandering around the store. While in the kitchen section we found something that would work in our pantry. You see we've (my mom more than me) been slowly better organizing our pantry. It's not a very big pantry, the doorway is a set of skinny bi-fold doors, the inside width isn't much more. The depth is a different story. Our pantry is deep and there is empty space above the top shelf. I've thought about adding a shelf above that for things we don't use as often, but it would be hard to get to since it's not a walk in pantry.
Pantry before
Pantry before
As you can see, we have basic wire shelving. We really didn't do anything about them for nearly 20 years, but after my mom retired a few years ago, she found ways to keep herself busy around the house. One day she decided to turn her attention to the pantry. A huge issue with wire shelving is the fact that they aren't a solid surface like say wood, and so things don't always sit flat, and things tend to fall through the bars. A cheap and easy solution to that was to pick up some thin foam core boards from the dollar store and place them on top of the shelves. After that came the baskets. We shop at the dollar store, and don't mind that the baskets don't match each other or don't look fancy.
One thing we've always done is reuse jars, bottles and various other containers. We have a mix of plastic and glass containers. Until this year, we left things like pasta in their boxes but if it was something like popcorn purchased in a a bag, then we put that in a container. I've always liked the look of things in jars but buying jars has always been a very low priority. Fortunately some companies are using jars and other containers for things like candy and pretzels. Most of the jars and containers we've acquired in recent years were purchased from Aldi. So the pantry is looking more organized with the jars and containers. One area that's been an issue is the section of the shelf that has the aluminum foil, plastic wrap, ziptop bags, etc. We tried something years ago but it was a waste of time. It just held one or two items and the reset was still a mess.
The mess, no this is not staged.
Yep, it's really a mess.
The solution?
This simple wire corner shelf for $6.99. We didn't know if it would fit since we didn't know the measurements we'd need, but we bought it anyway with the thought that, if it didn't fit, I'd simply return it. So once we were home, I did a trial run, I set it in the pantry and placed the items in and on it to see if they would fit and I was happy to see they did! This was great because it saved me from having to go to Home Depot to spend quality time trying to figure out what I can make that's basically this, but was also sectioned off in each shelf.
There were a couple minor issues, the first was that the corner shelf unit didn't sit flat, it wobbled. The second was the bottom shelf was nothing more than an outer wire, nothing inside. Both were simple solutions, although the first was a teeny bit painful. I bent the bottom wire by hand, it took a couple tries but I evened it out. It still wobbles a hair, but it's not noticeable. The second was just as easy. We have a large cardboard box that was cut down to fairly big pieces, so I took a piece, placed the corner shelf on top of it and traced the inner part of the frame and cut it out with a box cutter. It just needed a little trim on one side but it fits perfectly! Sorry I don't have pictures of the process, I thought about it after I was finished.
Pay no attention to the walls, we will be painting the pantry soon.
Once it was all done and set, I put everything into it.
It's so niiice. Now that it's more condensed that gave me a chance to move the jars and containers over, which frees up space on the shelf to add more things. The entire thing took maybe 5 minutes because I had to go over the cardboard a couple times for the blade to fully cut through.
What's next for our kitchen? Paint the walls, possibly the cabinets (my mom wants to paint them white), possibly replace the counter tops and a tile back splash.
