Milk Carton Storage Dispenser

So we're still happily trapped at home. I could get the truck out quite easily but feel little need to leave the homestead! 

Looking at our food supplies the only thing that we're going to be short of (besides potatoes - but that's my own stupid fault) is milk. 

The kids drink 26 pints of milk a week on average, and there's no way we could store a huge amount, not much more than a week or so worth, unless I dedicated a freezer to it! We had a few stored in the the freezer anyhow but we're getting down it now. Maybe we need a cow...

We also keep a fair bit of soya milk in the house as well. I can't drink milk (but can have cheese and yogurt) so the soya is mainly for me. I do cook with it and use it on our porridge in the morning so it's useful to have around. Looking at our stock though we're down to the last three cartons. This is mainly because they get shoved on the floor in the pantry and we're never sure how many we've got as it's always so full of stuff. 

Well I decided it was time to get them organised. 

I love my tin can storage door and we use it daily, it makes everything easy to find and to see how much we've got of everything, so I decided something similar was in order. 

Measuring the space I had I could see I could make something to hold ten cartons of milk and ten tins of tuna (that sized tin isn't on my storage door). Whatever you do though, don't cook with the tuna and the milk, that wouldn't be nice! 

Knocking this up took me about three quarter of an hour with some scrap ply from the doors I'm making. I just glued and pinned everything together, nothing fancy. Slots cut on the front let you see what you've got and to slow down the speed that you drop things in there.
You could easily make this with hand tools but it might take you a bit longer, I used a jig saw, circular saw and a compressor with nail gun. All the measurements are just to suite the size of the carton and tin can.

There's a little ramp at the bottom to catch the tuna tins, check out this post to see what I made last time. 

Setting out the spacing for the carton and the tuna tins

Cutting the top, having slots in it means you can see how much of everything you've got. 

The completed rack

The rack in place in the pantry - just need to fill it now! 

I'm quite pleased with this little project, it doesn't take long to get organised, even if it doesn't look that pretty.

That's ten litres of soya milk that can be seen, checked and stored easily, with the oldest being used first every time, same with the tuna. I use a couple of litres of soya a week, so that's roughly five weeks worth.

This would also work great for UHT milk, or anything in a carton.

If you've any other food storage ideas then please let me know, I might end up building it!

What do you think?

Have you got anything like this in your house to keep you organised? I'd love to see it if you have! Send me a picture!

2022 - Edit - This unit never worked very well. Just too much weight on the cartons I think. Not one I'd recommend copying. 

Can Storage Door Revisited

One of my favourite projects I've made has been my Tin Can Storage Door. 

I made this a couple of winters ago and we use it most days. 

It makes the small space I've got set aside for food storage so much more useful, it clearly displays all the tinned food, rotates stock and takes up very little room. 

I know I posted about this when I made it but I thought I'd do a little video of it in action.

Sorry I'm so full of cold in it! I sound quite bunged up! 

My little girl is super cute at the end though - what a little star!

Has anyone else made anything similar?

Let me know what you think and share the idea with friends so they can increase their food storage as well!

Pantry Storage Door

Made a door this week for a friends pantry. They wanted more easily organised storage and liked the idea of my can rotator door, but don't want to keep so many cans.

 We sketched up a design with a can rotator on one side and adjustable shelves on the other. Construction was to be simply ply and Planed softwood as the door is going to be painted when it's finished. A key part of these doors is that they have to open outwards and have a fairly substantial fame or lining to fix to to take the weight. Heavy duty hinges are also a must. 

Construction in progress

Rebating the sides so it'll open without binding on the frame. 

Fitted door from the outside

Door fitted and open

Filled with some food! 

The cans on the right hand side dispense like the door I made, so you always use the oldest one first. The shelves on the left are fully adjustable to accommodate whatever you want to. 

They're going to paint the outside in blackboard paint to give a great area for children to draw on and the ply on the inside will probably be left bare.

Who else wants me to make them one of these doors? A great way to increase your storage space and to be better organised. 

I like to encourage everyone to store a little more food. 

Can Rotator Door/Can Storage Door

 Sometimes when I make something I'm more than a little happy with it. 

This is one of those things. 

I decided that although we have little space to store food I was going to invent a way to store canned food so we could keep a bigger and better organised stock of food over the winter. A month or so ago I posted a picture of my can rotator prototype, well this is what it was a prototype for - My can rotator door.

 The doors to our understairs cupboard were pretty useless. They opened inwards, so you lost the best bit of storage, and they got in the way. I'd even taken one of them off so I could fit through the gap. 

Jam packed cupboard and useless doors

 We hadn't really been using the space under the stairs very efefficiently, I decided to give it a good clean out and realised that most of the stuff could go. This left me with a nice sized space to start to use for food storage. But I knew I needed a new door so I decide to combine the two. That way it would take up very little space and use an area of the cupboard that wouldn't usually be used.

Once cleaned out the cupboard had quite a bit of space

 I worked out that I could have six rows of cans across the width of the door. I decided that we use more than six types so I split it into two again, so I'd have six rows of ten and six rows of seven. This type of system also means that you always use the oldest cans first - no finding a can at the back of the cupboard dated pre war any more!

Once I had a few sketches drawn up I decided to start to make it in a few spare evenings.

Working out the spacings for the cans

Cutting the strips for the sides

Routing the groves to receive the ply

All the groves routed

The groves weren't too deep so as not to weaken the plywood

Starting to assemble it. All glue and pins

Setting the bottom ramps for the cans

Cutting the ramps ready to fix on

The front of the door is faced with MDF grooved to look like match board

Once painted this should blend in nicely

I painted blackboard strips so you could easily identify what cans were in what slot. A bit of masking tape made sure my lines were straight!

The door opens on a castor so the weight is spread a little bit better - not just on the hinges

When full the door it will hold 102 cans. The top section has 10 of each type.

The bottom section holds cans we don't use quite so frequently so only holds 7 of each type

I decided on a ply body and MDF front to keep the costs down and to save having lots of different materials involved and to buy. I used two sheets of 1/2" ply and one sheet of 3/8" MDF plus hinges and handle so the costs came in at around £70 but I wouldn't like to price the labour involved as it was surprising how long it took (although it always does when you make the first of something).

The door opens really nicely (there is a castor on the one side) and although you can feel it's carrying a lot of weight it's still easy to open and shut. The number of cans it holds feels about right for us and having the vision slots on the front means it's easy to see how many you need to buy to stock up. I'm really pleased with the two little blackboard painted strips as well as it makes it much easier to see what tin you are grabbing and it kind of makes it feel a little more complete.

I'm feeling a little more organised now with food storage, although I have a long way to go yet. 

Anyone else have something like this in their house? 

Can Rotator Prototype

As any one that reads this blog knows, our house isn't massive. So I'm always looking for new storage solutions and lately I've been looking at making some can rotators for the pantry. This is so we can keep a better stock of cans and always use the oldest first.

My prototype model

 The idea is to make a door for our under stairs cupboard that contains all of our canned goods and rotates the stock for us as well (few things annoy me more than wasting food). The door will be made out of ply and have six rows of cans on the front, and use a castor to help it open smoothly.

Pull the oldest can out first and new ones go in the top

The prototype works well and is ideal for screwing to the wall and keeping a dozen cans in and although it looks basic it would be great for someone to keep tinned dog food in their garage.

I thought I'd post this up here and see if anyone else has any ideas for can rotators or any links I should look at for inspiration? Cheers for your help guys!