Pantry Shelves: Done!

Warning: This post has A LOT of pictures

The pantry shelves are officially finished! Awhile ago we showed you this rough sketch about our plan for the shelving.

This probably didn't give you much information about what the shelving was going to look like so I wanted to share with you our inspiration photo that we used to build our shelves. We wanted an open feel to the room since it is small and so we really liked this idea that we found on Pinterest

You can see how this one was built here. We really liked how open and airy the selves were and thought that this would be the perfect for our little pantry. While we really liked the look of the shelves, we didn't love how expensive it was going to be to build our shelves using the method used in our inspiration photo. We also wanted lighter shelving so it wouldn't make the room too dark so we decided to put our own little twist on the above idea. 

Since we didn't follow the method in our pic, I'm going to go through step by step of our shelving installation. 

We greatly reduced the cost of our shelves by using long continuous pipes instead of small sections with connectors. Just to give you an idea, a 10' long section of 1/2" galvanized pipe at Lowe's is $13.42 and a 1' long section of the same pipe is $3.52 so the same length would have been over 2.5 times more! (and that's not including the price of the connectors). Lowe's will cut the long pipes down to the correct length so we brought in  careful measurements and brought home our perfect length pipes for a fraction of the cost. 

The next step was a tricky one. We needed to drill our holes in our shelves so that they could slide onto the pipe. Before we started drilling, we lined up all of our shelves and clamped them together in the position they would be in when they  were installed.

Then we drilled a pilot hole using a super long drill bit that we have. We used two levels at a 90 degree angle held agains the drill bit to make sure it was going straight.  Then Nate used a paddle bit to drill a hole just slightly larger than the 1/2" galvanized pipe.

Then we brought the stack (still clamped together) into the kitchen and slid (really pushed with all our might) the pipes through the drilled holes.

By either magic or a miracle, we managed to our shelves into the pantry. This involved a lot of pushing, angling, balancing and bending. It wasn't easy but we got them in place.

Once the unit was in place, we had to space out our shelves and make them sturdy. We have some shelves that are big enough to fit can goods, and then bigger shelves for taller items.

To make sure our shelves were going to be able to hold everything we wanted to put on them, we supported them in the back with strips of MDF nailed to the wall and in the front we used these

These are split ring hangers that clamp on to the pipe and you can tighten them so they hold onto the pipe and you can not move them.. at all. This keeps the shelves nice and level and strong.

 At the top and botom we screwed the pipes into the ceiling and floor.

On the other side of the room we installed more shelves but didn't take them all the way to the floor.

For these, we used a 90 degree connector and attached the pipe to the wall. Once everything was installed, it was time to paint. I taped off the pipes near the shelves and then painted and painted and painted. I used left over paint from another project which is a grayish taupe color.

Here is the shelving painted and ready for some can goods.

We left the old medicine cabinet so that we can use it for spices

Here are the shelves with our pantry items.

As you can see, we have a lot of shelving to spare.

We really love how the shelving turned out. The pantry doesn't feel cramped and it is so nice to see exactly what we have at a glance. Now we can use our cabinets for things like dishes!

All of the shelving came in under $180

Linking to: Bower Power, Young House Love, Hi Sugar Plum, The Great Indoors, House of Hepworths, My Repurposed Life, Our Delightful Home, Five Days Five Ways, Serenity Now, Lovely Etc., The Rooster and the Hen, Six Sisters Stuff, Tatertots and Jello, Wayward Girls Crafts, Twigg Studio, Serendipity and Spice, Ask Anna, Home Stories A to Z, Uncommon Designs