New Shelves For The Pantry

I've started to kit out my dream pantry.

First job is to make up some shelves. These need to be heavy duty and look nice. I decided against buying adjustable shelves as I've never been that impressed and they don't have the right look for what I'm going for.

I made these from 3x2 cls which is about the cheapest timber you can buy but still looks okay when you rub the sander over it a few times. The base of the shelves is 18mm ply which sits in a rebate. Hopefully this should never move or flex no matter how much I store on it!

The video above shows what I made and how I did it. If you watch it please let me know what you think. I've made a few more bits since then and I'm pleased with how the room is shaping up!

Shoe Rack In The Porch

I've never really finished the porch. I built it, and we just started using it. One day last year I did the floor (which I might do another post on as I'm quite pleased with it) and then I put up a few hooks and we just started using it like a normal room. 

Loves being like daddy!

Shoes are always a nightmare in this house and I wanted more storage for them. So many pairs of feet and each one has multiple pairs of shoes, boots and wellies! I also wanted a shelf for the eggs to go on instead of having them placed in the dinning room all the time. 

I let her screw in the screws. She was quite rapid! 

 So one afternoon my middle child and I set about putting up some shelves. I machined the wood the night before (she's too small to manage the planner unfortunately) so all we had to do was mark it all out and, drill the holes and screw it all together. The wood was some I had saved from being burnt on a big job about 10 years ago!

Finished shelves - I really wish this was all the shoes!

She loved it! She's very much a girl that needs to be kept busy and doesn't like doing nothing, so a job like this was ideal. she laughed the whole time I let her use the drill, switched the hoover on and off for me, passed me everything I needed, hammered in rawl plugs, she was a great little helper really.

Little girl proud of her work! 

She was so proud to show everyone when they got home and I'm pleased to have more shoes up off the floor and organised!

Any tips for storing hundreds of shoes?

Shelves For Flour

I added a little more food storage last weekend. 

The under stairs cupboard has been much better since I added my can rotator door but there was still a lot of wasted space. I decided to add some shelves one side and a board the other to hang things on.

Shelves added alongside my can rotator door

 The shelves were made out of some plywood off cuts, so nothing fancy again, but they do the job and the sheet of ply the other side just makes it easier for me to put up hooks and things when I want.

A board added to the other side to easily fix hooks and hang things on.

I know it's not huge amount of extra food storage but every little helps especially as this will be easy to keep organised. The plan being to keep just flour and sugar on these shelves, the flour can then be easily  rotated so the oldest is used up first. Having flour here will also save space in the freezer as hopefully when we get a bread maker we'll be making bread daily(ish) rather than buying it once a week and freezing it all.

Also if I ever get a grain mill then the bags of flour will be replaced with kilner jars to keep it in and stored in the same place. Keeping it all in one place means that I can see when we're running low and buy more in - I hate running out of anything!

Anyone else been putting more food storage in? No matter how small!

Building In Extra Storage

The other weekend I had a bit of a frenzy on putting in shelves and extra storage. After being at home in the week full time, I could really see where we were lacking storage and where it might make life a little easier.

More storage in the airing cupboard - somewhere to keep all the towels. They all come out easily if I need access to the tank..

Not the prettiest shelf above the fridge but it doubles the storage for all our Tupperware and tins

A shelf across a window that we never use. A better use of the space we think!

Shelve above the door. A shelf that only I can reach! (Man that wall needs some more paint)!

Tins and jar storage (the bottom shelf was added recently the others added when we moved in)

We don't live in the biggest house, but I like to think we're making the most of the space we have. When we build the extension hopefully we'll be able to incorporate some clever use of space and storage for essential things like food and linen.  

Anyone else been adding storage in random places lately?

New Book Shelves

We're currently trying to clear out the spare room/office so that the girls can have a room each.

The trouble is I've got a lot of books up there

 We decided that the space to the left of the wood burner will become our new office type space with the computer (so when they're older we can monitor what they're on) and my reference books.

It's 1.6m wide so I decided to make some "substantial" shelves to go there. Some of the oak from my previous post got used on this, three big slabs of 250mm x 45mm timber. Not cheap but it should last a life time and it need to be big to take the weight of all the books!

It took a while on Saturday to fit, rout, sand, stain and oil them but they look pretty good when they're up and filled with books.

The top shelf is all carpentry, building and wood books.

The middle shelf is all gardening, self sufficiency, bushcraft and livestock books.

The bottom shelf is all cooking, preserving, smoking and curing books.

I think I need some more shelves!

This isn't even all of my reference books on these subjects as all the small sized ones are upstairs!

Anyone else have this problem with books?