Living in a small town house means that functionality and practicality have to go hand in hand with our classic romantic decor style. Not all things DIY are pretty and when they aren’t, they are fabulously functional. Which brings us to our tiny pantry in our tiny kitchen.

When we moved into our townhouse everything came pretty builder grade. Our so to speak “pantry” cabinet is situated nicely next to our refrigerator and is large enough for our family of three. It has deep-set cabinets and the lower pantry cabinet has 4 shelves. However, these deep-set cabinets really mean nothing because over the last 3 years we have only been using the front 1/4 of the shelf. So much has gotten lost and forgotten in the deep abyss of these shelves because well they don’t slide.

So its time to let our pantry shine and function to its full potential. Read through to the end to see the finished product!

 

DIY Sliding Pantry Shelves

It is truly embarrassing to even post the before, but hey that’s life right? So above is our sad little pantry. No rhyme or reason to anything in there. From time to time I would try to organize but as things are used, the things that aren’t get pushed to the back and lost and when we go grocery shopping the same. A never-ending circle of unorganized mess.

We made a quick trip to the The Home Depot to get our supplies and this project was done in a day! Seriously a DAY! No joke! I don’t think anything we do gets done in one single day. So pat on the back for us!

DIY Sliding Pantry Shelves Supplies

• Drawer Slide  (3)
• Circular Saw
• Orbital Sander
• Milwaukee Drill
• Dewalt Clamps
• Level
• Tape Measure
• Screws
• Poplar Wood .75″ x 2.5″
• Square (Yellow Triangle)
• Pencil
• Existing shelf is used as new sliding base

Sliding Shelves Prep

Rule of thumb, MEASURE TWICE and CUT ONCE! The hubby says in this project measuring is KEY. You only have about an 1/8″ wiggle room for these drawer slides.

We used the existing peg holes and the drawer slide to draw a level line and used our level for added measure. We attached the drawer slide to the side opposite the pantry door hinge first.

On the opposite side where the pantry door hinge is, you must account for the new shelf sliding. You will have to create an extension (we cut an extra poplar wood board to length) attached to the wall so the shelf clears the pantry door. From there the drawer slide will attach to the poplar wood extension.

 

 

Stand Alone Shelf to Sliding Box Shelf

The existing shelf was used as the base to our new sliding shelf. This existing shelf was trimmed using a circular saw, clamps and table. You must account for the new extension in place on the side wall of the pantry making the shelf clear the pantry door.

 

We then created a boarder around our new shelf base with our poplar wood pieces. Pre drilling is always a good thing to do first to prevent cracking the wood. We didn’t do any fancy angled cuts. This was pretty simple IKEA cuts going on here. We cut the wood length pieces from end to end and the width pieces fit snuggly in-between.

 

Once the boxes are assembled, use your orbital sander to smoothly sand the edges.

 

Next you will need to attach the inside tracks to the poplar wood pieces and slide the new shelf box into your pantry.

DIY Sliding Pantry Shelves Reveal

We transformed 3 of the 4 shelves in our lower pantry cabinets to sliding shelves. The bottom shelf will be kept for large items like water bottles etc. We liked the look of the poplar wood unpainted. So here it is, all natural!

 

Because so much was lost and forgotten over the years in the deep abyss that was our pantry, we were able to throw out all of the things that were…gross…expired! Yes; seasonings, teas, sauces, cans, cereal, oatmeal…they have expiration dates! lol

Pantry Organization is still in the works. If you have any suggestions, please send them my way!

Let me know what you think about our pantry transformation below in the comments. Thanks for stopping by to see how we made our pantry functional for our home. Cooking is so much easier when all of our spices are readily accessible. In this project I found that organization in the kitchen feeds my soul!