DIY Pantry in Basement Stairwell

This weekend I was left alone for a day and half.  What did I do, you ask?

Well, I Randomly decided to build myself some pantry shelves for spices, cans and jars that were, up to that point, taking up space in our kitchen cabinets.

It all started with two palates the Ossining library had put out on the street for garbage day.

The boards were 3.5 X .5 inches and about 4 or 5 feet long each.  I had to pull out a number of staples and cut off the ends but they were in pretty good condition for what I wanted.

I used the worst edge for the back bottom of the shelves.  I then cut the boards to the length I needed and then cut off the corner that would have stuck out past the door frame.  Then I  routed the bottom edge of the shelf to give them a finished look as well as to get rid of any chipped or imperfect edges that some of these boards had.

Last I cut blocks that were slightly larger than 3.5 in and cut them in 45 degree triangles with my chop saw to make the braces.  I used two drill bits one to inset the screw and one for the screw itself as to not crack them.  then I held them to my belt sander and swayed the front side back and fourth to give them a rounded front.  I set the shelves up in the stairwell according to the heights I felt we needed and made sure they were all level.

    

Mrs. Moore was very excited when she came home and saw them.  Now we can finally get some of our cabinet storage back for other kitchen items we need to put away.