New shelves, and ensuing chaos!

I lightheartedly dubbed 2024 the year of the shelves, and while we did get quite a few shelves up then this year has seen us tackle almost as many shelves (though I’ve not actually counted). My craft room cupboard was always on the list to have some relatively narrow shelves across the alcove to make use of the space - and I commissioned MOH to make three shelves from the large shelf that came out of our built in wardrobes (more on those another day I’m sure).

He duly and promptly made two and a half of those shelves, which sat mostly undisturbed under our stairs. But this is where it all went wrong, while I was waiting for the actual installation (and I’ve been pretty patient even if I do say so myself) I decided I needed a fourth shelf.

I think by this time MOH was very much of the opinion that he should get these four shelves on the wall PDQ in case the four grew to five, and so on.

So when I spotted this in my craft room, I knew we were in business…

Bring on the shelves

Like anything once you start and get the first piece up, it flies by - and thankfully that was the case here even after a small hiccup when the pipe/wire detector decided it needed a new battery and we actually had a spare so work could continue, phew.

Somewhere along the way one of the shorter supports went missing, or was never cut, or whatever - but now that we’ve spent some time sorting out the garage so there’s actually space to move, MOH was able to quickly cut a new/replacement one - it’s purposefully on the inside of the cupboard, but one day it’ll get painted I’m sure.

Load them up

And aren’t they great?

They are only about 70cm wide by less than 20cm deep - though you’ll not be surprised to learn that MOH was provided with more detailed measurements than this! - but have really made a difference to my craft room. For comparison they offer a similar amount of space as four extra cubbyholes in my Kallax units, which is a lot of new space, but the space is linear so its easier to store and access smaller items.

The only issue was that as I moved things around, and onto the new shelves I realised that the spaces I now had in the Kallax cubbyholes should more usefully be filled with things I use more often. So these four shelves prompted an almost entire room reorganisation, which meant that for a day or two the room mostly looked like this.

But it has got better, and I can even see the carpet again!

I even found things that I had forgotten about, and things I didn’t even know I had - like a small bag of felt squares, which was handy as I’ve seen a small stand-up Christmas tree which uses felt which I want to try and make, so that’s a result.

My four new shelves are fully loaded now, and everything has its place - it’s so nice to have everything, such as my threads and patterns, together. But don’t tell MOH as I’m already lining up a couple more shelf installations around the house, he doesn’t need to know about these just yet, and I promise I’ll break the news to him gently!

Shelves in the pantry

I dubbed 2024 the year of the shelves, and while we didn’t get to all the shelves I’d hoped we would there were still plenty of shelves (and don’t worry more to come for MOH this year!). We were off to a good start with the really useful shelves in the bathroom cupboard, which I’d broached with MOH after a significant period of swear-free DIY tasks following the more troublesome to put together open shelving in the pantry and utility room.

True to my word the next shelving project was also in the pantry, though I didn’t expect it to be many months later until we started this - but hey ho, that’s what happened. It’s taken me a few more months to share it here, but while these shelves might be small, they are mighty!

They have completed the storage in this area and it’s so much better to see things on a shelf rather than a basket on the floor. Even MOH agrees, as he could never find any of our herbs and spices before - and didn’t help matters by putting them back into random spots, which made cooking “fun”.

But anyway, they are up - and are in use - and everything is still in the same place, (I hesitated to write that as i) I didn’t want to tempt fate and ii) I don’t want MOH to see it as some kind of challenge. Hmmn) and it’s the perfect use for a not very big, but potentially useful space behind the door.

I was pleased that the Proof of Concept passed muster…

Though I admit in my mind’s eye I had something a little more permanent and sturdy in mind…

I needn’t have worried, that was also a test, apparently, and after that the shelves flew up.

You might be wondering if the part-SMOL box is significant - it is. That was the very practical ‘spacer’ ensuring that the shelves (all bar the bottom one) were the same distance apart. It’s advantage was it was freestanding, thus freeing up MOH’s hands and avoiding the need for me to be there holding it, no doubt in the wrong place.

Don’t they look great?

What you can’t see here though is the detail on the front edge. Clearly growing back into his shelf game MOH routed the edges so they matched the edges on the open shelving which are (as you look) on the right of these. A small touch, but one that really elevates them, or I think so, he’s a clever wood worker isn’t he?

Then it was over to me to load them up - actually a more daunting task than you’d think.

I’ve grouped similar types of spices together, for example on the bottom shelf there’s all the spicier spices - which as luck would have it all turned out to be in similar coloured jars. The ‘shop’ tin on that shelf is just the right size for some stock cubes, and the one two shelves above is home to our home grown, home dried bay leaves - much prettier than an old take away box!

The top shelf, which I can reach without steps - another requirement! - holds those which are used less often. And while there’s spaces I think I’ve got all that I need and even threw out a few more jars in the process. But if there’s a new addition, then there’s plenty of space for that too.

The pantry isn’t the biggest space - but it’s plenty big enough - so it’s hard to get all of the new shelves in one shot. The final, and larger spaced shelf, has more stock cubes and more basics like salt and pepper refills. If needed, it can also hold bottles (as we know from the Proof of Concept) but I can’t see that we’ll need it for that anytime soon.

Living in the space (the house, not the pantry) really did help shape how we shelved this space. My first instinct was to have shelves top to bottom and be in shelf heaven. But I rethought that after hosting our first Christmas here in 2023 and adding some extra and much needed space with the fold-up table, previously my sewing machine table. It was so useful that since it moved here it’s never left, even though I’ve only used it a couple of times since.

And it’s found itself the perfect home, hasn’t it?

Industrial open shelving in our pantry and utility room

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!