See my video tutorial of this project here!
I have yet to meet someone who is content with the amount of storage space in their kitchen. For years, I was stuffing canned and packaged food wherever I could squeeze it in between dishes. Once our children were in their teens, it was clear we needed a dedicated kitchen pantry for food items. Thankfully, I discovered an excellent way to add an entire wall of pantry space to almost any kitchen. Best of all, this easy inexpensive pantry can be finished in less than a day!
The First Thing You Need for an Easy Inexpensive Pantry
The first thing you need for this project is three HEAVILY discounted wall cabinets. I guarantee, if you look long enough, you will find three identical cabinets on closeout or clearance in your local big box hardware store. They routinely place scratch and dent cabinets in a designated area for 30-75% off. You may check to see if your town has a local Habitat for Humanity Restore. People donate cabinetry and other household items. The store uses profits to help build homes for those in need. You can find some outstanding like new items there.
Finding Space for Your Food Pantry
Next, you need a vacant, or semi-vacant wall. We are talking vertical space here. Often, we visualize cabinets all in a row beside each other. Your new pantry will take up very little space from side to side. It will only be as wide as the cabinets you purchase. We will be stacking one over the other to the ceiling. This way we use minimal floor space but have a ton of surface area.
Hardware and Shelves for Your Easy Inexpensive Pantry
Lastly, you will need screws, bolts, or whatever hardware is appropriate for mounting your cabinets to the wall. Most cabinets I have seen come with shelves included. If you can score some cabinets for 90% off because of a busted shelf or two…GO FOR IT. You can easily have the hardware store cut some inexpensive particle or pressboard shelves. Other than that, you have everything you need for a designated easy inexpensive floor-to-ceiling food pantry!
Where I Found Cabinets for my Pantry
I found my three cabinets at our local Restore. These beauties are IKEA Glass front cabinets and included adjustable glass shelves. They did not include hardware, but for 65 dollars each, I could afford some bolts and washers to mount them!
Mounting the Pantry Cabinets
The process for mounting the cabinets is pretty straightforward. It will, however, depend on the area you choose to work with. In our case, there was just enough wall near our back door entrance. There is this awkward alcove-like area that meets the door to our basement. There isn’t much floor space, but we had the entire span of a wall from floor to ceiling to work with. My goal was to stack the cabinets as close to the ceiling as possible. This creates the look of a built-in pantry that had always been in the space. I measured the height of the area up to the crown molding. I then measured the cabinet height and multiplied that by three. Subtracting the cabinet height from the total amount of available wall height revealed a few-inch gap would be left.
Making the Pantry Look Built-In
To remedy the excess space, I built a simple base using 4 scraps of wood. I cut two parallel blocks the depth of the cabinets and the height of the gap (minus the thickness of the solid wood board that goes on top) to fit under the sides of my bottom cabinet. I then cut two more blocks of the same height to go under the front and back of my base cabinet. There is a nice snug fit in the little alcove, so I was comfortable tacking these pieces together with finishing nails. Finally, I cut a scrap piece of solid wood to fit perfectly on top of my rectangle base. I tacked this on top with finishing nails as well.
Assembling the Pantry
Now that the base was built, I could begin assembling my pantry. To make the mounting process easier, and the cabinets lighter, I removed all the shelves as well as the glass doors. This left the cabinet boxes. I set the bottom cabinet directly on my base and slid it against the wall to the right. The original mounting holes did not line up with any of my wall studs. I drilled new holes and installed heavy-duty bolts with wide-width metal washers. The bolts go through the back of the cabinets and directly into studs at the rear top right and left corners. The washers are threaded onto the bolt and rest against the back inside wall of the cabinet box.
Stacking and Attaching the Cabinet Boxes
With the first cabinet box securely in place, I stacked the second directly on top of the first and repeated the procedure. I did the same with the third cabinet box placing it directly on top of the second. Once all three cabinets were securely attached to the wall studs, I used long wood screws to attach the cabinet boxes. I pre-drilled holes going from the bottom of the cabinet above into the top of the cabinet below. I placed three screws in the front and back of each cabinet.
Adding Doors and Shelves to the Easy Inexpensive Pantry
With the cabinet boxes attached, I had a single floor-to-ceiling pantry unit. Now I could re-attach the doors and install the glass shelves. I like the fact that the shelves are glass and adjustable. This makes it easy to clean and possible to see what is on the shelf above from underneath. For the top cabinet, I opted to place the shelves in the traditional level position. This is where I store larger, lighter, less often used boxed food items.
Customizing the Pantry
I customized the second cabinet to hold our microwave along with various baking sundries and hot beverage preparations. The doors were manufactured with a light frosted appearance that obscures the view through closed doors. I opted to add a layer of white paint to the inside of the door to further hide the contents of this cabinet. Before painting, I cleaned the inside glass well with rubbing alcohol and painted a coat of white primer followed by two coats of white latex paint. Deciding if I will do the same for the other cabinet doors will wait for now. I like the effect, and it isn’t showing any signs of scratching or peeling. I kind of like having the different levels of opacity for the center cabinet alone.
Easy Method for Storing Canned Foods
The bottom cabinet holds all of our heavy canned foods. To speed the process of putting away cans, I installed these shelves angling toward the back. You simply drop in a can, and it rolls to the back. This also makes retrieving cans easier from below.
How the Easy Inexpensive Food Pantry Has Helped Us
Having a beautiful new pantry for all of our food created much-needed additional space for cookware. It also inspired me to continue the pantry and add a slim broom closet beside and cleaning supply cabinet above. I’ll share these simple yet amazingly helpful storage additions in my next blog.
More Great Ideas
I hope my easy inexpensive pantry project inspires you to use the space you have to create the storage you want. For even more storage and organization ideas, be sure to visit the Sawdust and Cornbread YouTube Channel. I post a new DIY tutorial each week!
Thanks for joining me,
~Lora Lea
