Walk-In Pantry–Planning the Finishing Touches

Looking at what has been done, and thinking about just how much stuff I’ve got, it occurred to me that there might not be enough shelves in my new walk-in pantry. There are a lot of off-cuts left by the carpenter, so I have worked out a way to utilise these by making some stacking free-standing shelves. I have marked out all the timbers and my hubby says he will cut them out for me. Unfortunately there isn’t quite enough of the pine left so some of it will have to be made from the remaining plywood (of which there is plenty) but this doesn’t look quite so nice.

Once he’s cut out the pieces, I will treat them as I have treated the rest – with linseed oil and a final buff up with wax polish. It shouldn’t take long to assemble them as they are very basic – just a shelf with a couple of uprights which will be glued and screwed in place. They will be removable if I find I don’t need them, but having 3 large shelves at the back which are quite high, I think there will be a fair amount of wasted space. The new moveable shelves will stand around the 3 sides of the space, leaving plenty of room in the middle for larger, taller things. I shall store things I don’t use very often at the back – spare supplies etc. – and it will be quite easy to access them because the shelves are at most only 5 3/4 inches deep, and the ones at the sides will only be 4 inches deep.

We went to B&Q the other day and I bought some long lengths of Conti board to make more shelves in the bedroom for my books – the existing shelves are fairly widely spaced and there’s room for two more, which I need as I am starting to lay books horizontally on top of the ones on the shelves! We got B&Q to cut them to length for us, and the off-cuts are exactly the right length to fit in one side of the pantry, and will make a nice pair of shelves once they’ve got their uprights attached.

I’ve also got some wire magazine racks to attach to the inside of the door, for storing rolls of kitchen foil, baking parchment, etc. This was an idea I found on Pinterest. I also need to fix a hook inside the door, for hanging my apron, and another one to hang the clipboard that has my shopping lists on it.

The wine rack is in a sorry state. It’s a wooden one, made of square section pieces connected with fluted dowels and all the joint have dried out so it’s falling to bits. My hubby is going to mend it so that it’s ready for the kittens when they arrive – two generations of kittens have already used it as a climbing frame and they love it! After our new little ones have decided they are too grown up for it, it will go on the floor under the bottom shelf of the pantry and be used for what it was originally intended for!

I am hoping that the stone slab will be ready for collection at the beginning of next week.

I have not heard back from the electrician after leaving a message so I think he must be away on holiday. I expect he will be able to fit the light once the pantry has got stuff in it – I really don’t want to wait too much longer to get things moved in, and to move back into my kitchen, because this needs to be done before the arrival of the kittens at the end of the month. Doing the job would be a nightmare with them under my feet!