Let’s Remodel the Pantry!

Yes, we have a pantry. Is it a large walk-in one? No; but it is a pantry. I did have a walk-in one once, it was really nice! The pantry we have is free-standing. It is 28″ wide by 24″ deep. The doorway is 18″ wide. There are 4 wire shelves that are 22″ deep. While it functioned well, I decided to make it more user friendly.

Original Pantry

What is the plan?

The main plan was to remove the 4 wire shelves and replace them with, hopefully, 6 or 7 shelves made from wood or MDF. Since I’ve a visual learner, I looked at a lot of pantry ideas on Pinterest. I found several ideas that I really liked! My favorite was creating wrap around shelving. The benefits to that are: the shelves would be narrower than the wire ones making it easy find things and it would create a ‘walk-in’ pantry. The drawback to this idea is that there is only 3″ of wall space on the inside of the door on the left and 3 1/2″ on the right. With that little space, could I do shelves on the sides? I saw examples where the side shelves were cut at a 45-degree angle or cut in a curve near the door. To get an idea of how wide I could make the side shelves, I laid scrapes of wood on one of the wire shelves. It looked like I could fit about 7″ on each side and 12″ along the back wall. Once I had a rough idea of the new look, I emptied the pantry to remove the shelves.

Step 1: Remove shelves

Removing the shelves would be the easiest part of this project; or so I naively thought. Actually, removing the shelves themselves WAS easy. They just popped right out of their brackets. It was the brackets that gave me grief! The brackets were attached with what looked like screws. So, I took a flathead screwdriver and started to remove the first ‘screw’. Nothing happened other than the ‘screw’ just kept spinning around. In my frustration, I tried to force the bracket out of the wall by pulling on it with pliers. Nothing happened! So, I resorted to YouTube to see how to remove the brackets. What I found is that they are NOT screws but nails/tacks that are set into wall anchors.

After finding out how to remove them, I tried using a flathead screwdriver, then a putty knife, to get behind the head of the nail but ended up using my crowbar. The crowbar made removing the nails much easier! Removing the brackets themselves, was a chore! For that process, I used a variety of tools: putty knife, 9 in 1 tool, crowbar, needle nose pliers. Some of the anchors came out cleanly, others took off some of the drywall.

Step 2: Putty holes & cut drywall

After removing the shelves & brackets, I puttied the holes in the drywall. I planned to install wallpaper, so this step wasn’t necessary but I felt it would make a smoother surface for the wallpaper. Once the shelves were removed, I was able to get a better look at the space and measure for the distance between the new shelves. While I was looking at the space, I thought it would be nice to have even more shelf space, so I thought I’d cut out a strip of drywall on each side of the pantry close to the door to create shelving between the studs.

I started on the right hand side of the pantry. Not knowing if there were wires directly behind the drywall, using a manual drywall knife, I cut a small hole so I could get a look. After the hole was cut, using a flashlight and mirror, I tried to see inside but couldn’t. I enlarged the hole enough to reach my hand inside. I couldn’t feel any wires, so I cut a little more until I could use the mirror and flashlight. There were no wires at all! Now that I knew there were no wires, I switched from the manual drywall saw to my oscillating tool. Boy was that messy! I wore a shower cap, N95, head lamp, & glasses to do the job. I also shut the pantry door and put a towel at the bottom of the door to prevent drywall dust from filling the kitchen. I removed the drywall to the height of the doorway. The ‘inset’ is 12” x 83” and 4” deep.

When I started cutting the drywall on the left side of the pantry, I discovered wires 26” above the floor – drat! To prevent getting close to the wire (which was fed through the stud), I made the cut 20” from the floor so that inset is only 12” x 20” but still gives me an additional space.

Step 3: Wallpaper

After cleaning up all the drywall dust, I installed vinyl wallpaper. I had ordered 4 rolls of wallpaper. Each roll was 96” x 20”. Over the years, I have installed a lot of wallpaper but it has been a long time since I’ve done so. Although, I recently used Contact paper for a backsplash. Contact paper is essentially the same as vinyl wallpaper. With the pantry being so small, my working space was tight which made hanging the wallpaper more difficult than I had anticipated. The first roll went up smoothly but when it came to the 2^nd & 3^rd rolls, I had trouble lining up the pattern as the wallpaper had to wrap around corners. I ended up cutting the strip vertically to make it easier to install. Part of me felt like I was cheating, the other part was just fine with that 🙂

Step 4: Make shelves

Next up was a trip to Home Depot for the supplies. When I got there, I looked at both plywood and MDF sheets but couldn’t decide on which would be better in terms of strength and ease of working with. I asked one of the associates and he said MDF would be both stronger and since I planned on painting the shelves, give me a better finish. We then discussed the thickness – should I get ¾” or would ½” be strong enough. Since my pantry is only 28” wide, he said the ½” would work.

I asked him to cut the 4’ x 8’ into 4 pieces, three of them at 27 ¾” and one at 13 ½”.  When I got home, I cut the 27 ¾” ones in half giving me 6 pieces that were 24” x 27 ¾”. I would use those to make the U shaped shelving. The 13 ½” one would be cut down to be used as the top shelf. I created a design for the shape of the shelves and drew it onto one of the 6 pieces. Using my jigsaw, I cut out the design and smoothed the cut edge with a sanding block. After that, I used the first piece to draw the design onto the remaining pieces.

I used water-based paint and applied a coat. After the paint dried, I noticed the shelves were a bit rough and wondered if I should have used a special paint. I did some research and found that there is an MDF primer. Well, too late now. I lightly sanded the first coat of paint and was thrilled that the MDF smoothed out beautifully! I applied a second coat on all the shelves, did another light sand before applying the 3rd coat.

Step 5: Install trim & shelf supports

While at Home Depot, I also bought 1” x 2” boards to use for supports under the shelves; 4” wide trim to use inside the inserts, 1 ½” trim for baseboards, trim around the doors, and trim along the outside of the insets. The next step was to lightly sand and paint trim used for baseboard, around the doorway, trim for the insets where I removed drywall, and shelf support boards. The paint I used is All in One Paint which has primer and sealer included. I applied two coats of their black paint, Iron Gate. I used my miter saw to cut the trim and installed it using my nail/brad gun. To install the shelf supports, I used screws that were inserted into studs. After the trim was installed, I puttied holes and did paint touchups.

Step 6: Install shelves

Before installing the main shelves, I cut and installed the shelves for the insets. I installed one at the bottom of each inset. I also cut 6 small shelves that would fit inside the right inset at the same height as the main shelf on that level.

Starting with the bottom shelf, I did a dry-fit and found that since the shelf was cut to almost the exact width of the pantry, I couldn’t get it to fit on its supports with all the supports for the other shelves already installed. So, I removed the 24” support for the next shelf from the left wall. Doing that gave me enough room to get the bottom shelf in place. After installing the first 3 shelves, in order to fit the last 3 U-shaped shelves, I also had to remove the supports on the other two walls. I reinstalled the supports for each shelf when it was time to install it. If I were to do this again, I would wait to install the support for each shelf until I was ready to install the shelf itself. As I installed each level, I also installed the 4″ shelves in the tall inset, making them level with the large shelf so they can be used as one shelf space.

Step 7: Add light & fill

Because I used dark wallpaper and black for the shelves, unless it is daytime and the sun is shining, the pantry is a bit dark. To add light, I installed strip lights along the inside of the doorway. The strips are 6 1/2ft and have an adhesive backing. They are motion sensor and come with a rechargeable battery pack. They were quick to install and fit in the grove of the trim that surrounds the doorway. To add pizzaz, I also installed a chandelier. The chandelier is acrylic but looks like crystal! I removed the parts that hold lightbulbs and inserted battery-operated candles in their place. The candles are on a timer. They run for 6 hours a day and are off for the remaining 18 hours.

Before, During, After

This project has made such a difference in the look and feel of the pantry! Both hubby and I love the look, the lights, the fact that we can find what we are looking for with ease. A bonus is that I can actually step into the space. It’s a small step but still! I am thrilled that my plan to increase the number of shelves actually worked! The pantry is much more efficient and WAY more beautiful! The wood, screws, and paint for this project were approximately $150

Supplies

• 1  4 x 8’ sheet of ½” MDF – shelving
• 6  1” x 2” MDF primed boards – supports
• 3  4” x 7’ trim boards – interior of insets
• 5  1” x 1 ½” trim boards – baseboard, door trim, trim along insets
• 1 ½” star headed screws
• Wood filler
• 1 ½ qt black paint
• 4 rolls vinyl wallpaper
• 2  6.5’ motion sensor strips – lighting
• Chandelier
• Battery operated candles
• Miter saw
• Skill saw
• Jig saw
• Drill
• Level
• Nail gun & compressor
• Crowbar
• Putty knife
• Razor knife
• Oscillating tool
• Drywall knife
• Paintbrush
• 4” paint roller

Instructions

• Remove current shelving
• Fill holes
• If making insets, remove drywall between studs to the height you want or are able to depending on electrical wires
• Paint or wallpaper
• Measure length of each wall
• Paint 1″ x 2″ boards
• Cut 1″ x 2″ boards to the lengths measured
• Cut shelves using jigsaw
• Paint shelves
• Install shelf support and shelves individually using screws
  • Be sure to insert screws into studs or use wall anchors
• Install battery-operated motion sensor light inside pantry

For your convenience

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