Coming from a house which had neither a pantry nor a utility room it was exciting (in a domestic kind of way) to have these spaces in our new house. Both spaces had room for, and needed more storage - the pantry especially, which was essentially a large walk in cupboard. We knew soon after we viewed our new build barn that we wanted something that stood out, but was also functional too, and we quite quickly settled on the idea of pipe shelving.
I’d seen a few companies selling shelving that could work, but in the end settled on the Acumen Collection for custom-sized shelving. We also looked at buying the components separately, but decided against that because we could get what we needed for our spaces from a single supplier, which worked better for us - and it also meant that someone used to supplying these checked over our design.
As you’ll know by now I do like a plan, and this was the plan for one of the custom units we sent over for viability checking:
Thankfully this, and the smaller custom sized unit for the pantry came back with top marks, and it wasn’t long before we placed our order. They took a good couple of months to be made and be delivered, and when they did we were stepping over multiple boxes as we’d ordered a lot of shelves. But once they were here we were keen to get started, or rather I was keen for MOH to get started!
Since we moved in we’d used the dresser we’d had in our conservatory and a couple of bookcases as impromptu food storage, and while it worked as a temporary measure it made our kitchen diner feel more cluttered than it needed to be, and remembering exactly where I’d put things was becoming a challenge.
These are the shelves that tested the patience of a very patient MOH, and given this I was so glad we didn’t opt to source the components ourselves - though now the shelves are completed if we were to do this again, I would seriously consider doing that. But as a first-timer, probably not!
They’re heavy, and tall so had to be built in-situ - and MOH soon (mostly) got the knack of putting them together with a few swear words thrown in occasionally, as is the way with DIY.
They’re up, and they’re fantastic, and we even got them up in time for Christmas so that we could get a bit more sorted before we hosted Christmas in our new house.
A PLACE FOR BREAD IN THE PANTRY
And of course when they first went up it was all a bit daunting - what should go where and so on. One thing I knew was that I wanted my new-to-me enamel bread bin to have pride of place, and so that was the first thing on the shelves. Thankfully it just about fits with the lid on, and instead of bread it houses my pasta. Obviously.
GRADUALLY FILLING UP…
… AND FULLY LOADED
My aim was to have a mix of practical and pretty, while having the things we used the most within easy reach - and so that meant breakfast things at eye level on the smaller unit, and interspersing the pretty items - the cheese dome, the enamelled bread bin. I reused the baskets I’d used in cupboards in our previous kitchen, hunting around the house as some had been redeployed following our move - and I think the symmetry of the baskets helps bring some order to what could be a jumble of a space.
I always planned to incorporate our old wine rack at the bottom of the unit, and this was easier said than done. The wine rack didn’t want to play ball, it wasn’t square and no matter how much MOH shaved off it still needed more. We got there in the end, but it took a while as obviously MOH didn’t want to take too much off.
ADDING SOME ADDITIONAL POP UP STORAGE
It’s through using a space that you learn what works and what doesn’t. I knew that over Christmas I wanted some more surface space in here, and then I remembered my wooden fold up table which used to hold my sewing machine. That hadn’t been used since we moved and was just the right size for what I had in mind - a space for the Christmas cake!
It worked so well as a temporary solution that the table now lives in the pantry behind the door, along with the new step stool I bought so that it’s easy to reach things on the top shelf. That means I’ve needed to revise my plans for shelves behind the door, which MOH is pleased about as I now want about half the shelves I previously did!
THE NEXT SHELVING PROJECT
Here, at some point in the Year of the Shelves, I’ll have shelves from just above where the table is for spices and random cans of drinks which will tidy up this part of the pantry no end - I can’t wait - we have the wood, so I’m hopeful it won’t be too long…
A similar approach in the Utility room
We opted for the same style shelving units in the utility room to provide consistency, and because we liked them! Here though we were able to choose one of the standard sized units with six shelves. In the end we only put up five of them as while there was space I actually don’t think it needed it.
This is also fits the pretty and functional brief - and has spaces for candles, wax melts and their associated paraphernalia, batteries, our medical kit, flower arranging supplies including vases, shoe cleaning stuff, table linen, light bulbs and my lovely new(ish) preserving pan.
It holds a lot of stuff but still manages to look organised and not too arranged! And in case you’re wondering the light bulbs are in one of the large baskets on the bottom, again previously used in our old kitchen and repurposed for our new space; the batteries are in a wooden wine box next to the new medical supplies tin. And apart from that tin and the preserving pan, everything else we had in our old house, where mostly they were in cupboards either in the kitchen or elsewhere in the house.
I wasn’t sure if either space would stay so tidy, but they have - thankfully, and even more so now I’m (domestically) excited about having these spaces in our new house!
