How to Build Temporary Pantry Shelving from Scrap Lumber for Free
77My wife wanted to know if I could do something, build some shelving to organize the pile of food boxes and canned goods littering the kitchen floor. Okay...why not? How tough could it be? There was plenty of scrap lumber, chunks of OSB (strand board) left over from building the house. It was piled under the front of the semi trailer.
Wait a minute. Normally, I'd simply build a "big box" on the ground outside, lug the thing into the home, stand it up against the wall, and that would be that. But that approach wouldn't work this time. Several reasons:
1. A box that big with that many shelves, constructed of strand board and 2" x 4" pieces, would be onerously heavy. 300 pounds at least. Could I move it alone? Sure. But at 67 years of age, going on 68, my need to prove how macho I am has dwindled considerably. How about figuring a less strenuous way?
2. While there might be enough long pieces in the scrap stack to form the tall sides and back of the thing, they were deep down in there. Did I want to pull out dozens of pieces of board just to get to them? I did not.
3. We were fresh out of 2" x 4" lumber. I'd saved a little pile of really short pieces, but those were going to be...problematic. The only longer chunks had been lying out in the weather for the past year, having once served as concrete forms for interior wall footngs. They could be used (though ugly), but I'd need to minimize the number of pieces needed.
Think, cowboy, think! (Always a risky proposition.)
It took a while, but a construction plan did come together eventually. Thinking to grab the camera didn't happen at first, though--so the project beginnings are lost to photographic history.
Anyway, the first thing to remember is that these shelves are strictly temporary. They're sturdy, of course; I don't build any other way, scraps or no scraps. But not bee-yoo-ti-ful. Hardly that.
Okay. I decided to build this thing from the ground up, cobbling together one U-shaped (square U) level at a time. Much of the time, I work measurements by intuition. How big should the shelves be? Well, what feels right? Oh, and what will fit onto the unfinished floor space by the kitchen's west wall where we ran out of rubber flooring tiles because I miscalculated the original order?
Final shelf "footprint": 40 inches wide by 17 inches deep.
Photo break!
With the thunderheads already piling up over the Huachuca Mountains by the time I got to work, it seemed advisable--since most of the work would be done outside due to the lack of a workshop--to limit my production to one "modular shelf" per day. Gotta get the power tools put away before the afternoon rains hit.
The steps:
1. Cut a bunch of shelf pieces from various scrap boards, each piece measuring 17" x 40".
2. Cut the two side pieces for the bottom shelf, 14" x 17", so that this shelf would be tall enough to handle the two-liter soda bottles (Coke, Ginger Ale, and Doctor Thunder from Wal-Mart) upon which we thrive.
3. Cut a couple of 17" pieces of 2" x 4" to serve as "top rails".
4. Cut four 10 1/2" pieces of 2" x 4" to serve as "side posts".
5. Screw all that together, angling the too-long sheetrock screws (of which we have an abundance left over, at least 15 pounds of the things) so that the tips don't push through the lumber to stab Pammie in the fingers.
Once the "square U" assembly is ready and lugged into the house, then:
1. Set the new shelf squarely on top of the floor (in the case of the lowest shelf) or directly on top of the previous shelf.
2. Care is taken to check the level of the previous shelf. One side is always a touch lower than the other--there's no way this is going to come out as precision cabinetry, folks.
3. One side of the "new" shelf is also always (or at least usually) a bit taller than the other as well. (One look at my "outdoor workshop" should give you a clue why this is so.)
4. The taller "new shelf" side is placed above the lower "previous shelf" side so that the "un-level-ness" does not accumulate to create a nasty curve to the total project.
Note: This may be a redneck way to compensate for one's crude efforts with the tape measure and SkilSaw, but like most redneck techniques, it works.
5. Next, two screws are installed on each side of the shelf, extending down through the strand board and anchoring that shelf to the 2" x 4" "top rail" of the previous shelf.
6. Using a level, each side board is straightened to a vertical position and anchored to the wall with a single "toenail" sheetrock screw. Yep, that'll leave holes in the wall when it's time to remove these shelves, but who cares? We'll be installing fancy store-bought cabinets there someday, so the holes will be hidden, duh!
The resulting installation is impressively solid, but there's one more thing to do:
7. Install a 2" x 4" post, dead center between the two shelves. Otherwise, on a 40" run like this one, the shelf will sag badly under a heavy load of canned goods.
That's it for now. Photos of the remaining shelves will be added as they are completed. This little project figures to reach the ceiling (or close to it) sometime within the next week or so.
In the meantime, a photo finish. Tonight's light show at sunset was just too good to pass up.
Final note: Total cost for this project: FREE! Being able to grab a can of bean wiith bacon soup from the shelf without having to rummage around in that mess on the floor: PRICELESS!
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Ghost...........uh are you so fed up with politics that you decided to write something soft and easy?? LOL! ...........how about a piece on making home pottery? ..................just yanking your chain ole buddy!
Becky: Sounds familiar. Our own kitchen table, growing up, had five of us seated at mealtimes...so two always had to sit on a wide bench instead of on individual chairs. Never did know (or even think about) who'd built that bench in the first place, but would bet it was either my Dad or HIS Dad, back when he was still in the area.
American Romance: You're just a bit of a latecomer to my Hubs! LOL! I was writing How-To stuff at HubPages for nearly two years before ever I wrote my FIRST political piece. If you want to see a dandy, one of the earliest, check out (including the Comments) "How to Build a Survival Cabin on a Shoestring Budget".
If I learn to throw pots, sure, I'll write about it. I write about ANYTHING--even have one on here about cobbling together a PB&J sandwich using a bagel.
Anyway, my chain's plenty sturdy; feel free to yank away. :)
Not just write about anything but make it compelling as well , that is the trick.
I have started a number of ‘temporary projects’ only to see them still around in various states of refinement 20 years later. Your modular shelving idea is perfectly sound and the finished project could look like a proper permanent installation.
Throwing out ideas and yanking chains;
At some point you should allow a ‘toe kick’ space [about 4-6“, stacked 2x4s will do] at the bottom of the unit. This helps keep dirt off the first shelf, makes it harder for the critters and like the name implies, allows you to look at the upper shelves without stubbing your toe. I know it seems unnecessary and a small waste of space but it really is not.
If you restack at this point to add TK space or just continue upward, a coat of paint before you install the modules is a lot easier to apply now and makes a big dif looks wise.
These things have an upper, lower and ‘working’ area in between that gets the most action because it is the easiest to see and reach. Often shorter shelve heights in the working area make better use of space.
If you have some hinges lying around, you might consider some swing out shelves in one of your working area modules. Excellent use of space, check some cabinet accessory sites for ideas.
When you have the modules the way you like and have painted again ‘in place’, full length sides of decent ply or even door skin can be added to add strength and make the unit look whole.
Linoleum is far superior to shelf paper for lining the top of the shelves and cheaper too.
Trim material 1x, ½x, or ¼x can be installed over the OSB shelf edges and full length sides. Install the trim just high enough to hold the linoleum in place.
Trim can be finished in a contrasting color, dark green and whitewash have been popular in the past. Natural is always good imo and can be painted over.
I assume you were joking about ‘store bought cabinets.’
I like Elenins ideas. The shelves never go to waste. Make them look pretty with some paint and some trim. I had a whole wall of shelves in a kitchen once. The best thing in the world. It was at a narrow end and had bi-fold doors hiding it. Hid the trash can, mops and the broom in there. Better than store bought. They were sturdy.
Elenin and Becky: No, I was not joking about the store bought cabinets. At the moment, we're as broke as any other citizens of these United States living on fixed incomes. But we have reason to expect that to change in the future, to the point that if we want to go all Architectural Digest here and there in a couple of years, it should be doable.
The idea is--my idea, but Pam totally concurs--to keep the outside of the home looking as homemade and low-profile money-wise as it is right now...but to go ahead and money up the inside when we can. I've suggested to Pam that we go with a floor-to-ceiling set of either light oak or maybe mahogany store-bought cabinets, likely purchased from Tucson or maybe via the Internet--and she kind of drools when I talk about it.
In other words, we'll have a "sleeper house", like a "sleeper car". LOVE those. Had a couple--one was my first "real ride", a 1952 Chevy with the original 216 cu. inch splashpan 6 engine replaced by a bored-out 235 inch 6 from a 1957 Chev. Had a shaved head on that one for a while, and until I cracked the thing (not enough cooling for the hopped-up engine) it ran like the proverbial striped-assed ape. Nothing over 105 mph, but with the stock .411 rear end, that puppy had some TORQUE off the line.
So: It's still pie in the sky till the money's in the bank and the check's cleared, but yeah. I was serious.
Which brings me back to the modular shelves I'm constructing and we're discussing here:
1. They won't be painted because (a) we're out of paint at the moment, and (b) they're strictly temporary--I figure their date to be replaced is most likely somewhere in 2013.
2. The toe-kick idea is a good one and I hate it. (Honest, both things are true.) Can't stand having "stuff" up a few inches off the floor and having to clean under there. Right now, I'm kind of stuck with 2 items like that--my bed and the refrigerator--but putting things up off the floor in this house is nothing but an open invitation for Gato kitten to crawl into, shed hair, and store stuff we suddenly can't find. No thank you.
Besides, right now, with the shelves sitting on bare wood, that bottom shelf board is virtually level with the rubber flooring tile. What are we going to kick? A soda bottle?
3. The "shorter shelves at certain points" make sense, and we've actually done that--just not, most likely, to your specs. The bottom shelf is 14" high to accommodate our ubiquitous 2 liter bottles of soda. Then a 12", mostly for boxes of foodsutffs. Then a 10", which accommodates tall canned goods well and allows us to stack stuff like pork & beans & cans of soup 2-high. Then back to 12", again for boxes, this time more breakfasty stuff like my favorite Raisin Bran, etc.
There will be two more shelves before I'm done, likely both 12-inchers. No particular reason, just a gut hunch that such a number will be "right for us". Pam, by the way, agrees.
4. The hinge-out idea gives me the shudders.
5. Door skins, no. Again, both because this is all for temporary use only AND because I'm building STRICTLY from materals already on hand. However, Pam IS planning to hang curtains over the front at some point in time.
6. No linoleum, again because we have none on hand and DO have plenty of shelf paper lying around. However, we've only paper-lined one shelf to date--and that only because I slipped up and put the rough side of the wood up instead of down, so we're reducing the likelihood of slivers. But for what we're doing, for the most part, we're plumb happy with nothing but raw wood.
Now, a note about your suggestions IN GENERAL: It would probably be a cold day in the nether regions of the Underworld before I ever listened to any good idea from anybody else on the planet--except when the idea comes from Pam, 'cause I have to live with the consequences if I ignore HER, I'm tellin' ya.
In fact, one interior wall in this house is one full foot to the west of where I'd planned it, purely 'cause my redhead said, "Give me more room in the kitchen; you don't need an office that big!"
But, even though I won't use your ideas, Elenin, I'm glad you put them forth, anyway...because OTHERS reading this Hub MAY very well find them both enlightening and useful.
Final thought on this topic for the moment: These raw modular shelves won't necessarily be done when they get removed from the kitchen in a couple of years. They may go into the utility room and become holders of tools, or--if the storage semi trailer is emptied out eventually--go into the semi for whatever purpose. Or into the laundry shed, which will be a separate structure.
Zee posseebilities are endless! :)
Becky, your "wall of shelves" does sound awesome. Eventually, I intend (where these shelves are now) to give Pammie a "wall of cabinets".
Becky 10 months ago
Nice sturdy shelves. My dad built shelves in the garage for storing things on that looked similar. He also built a window seat to store the large canning things in the kitchen. It also held a good supply of the canning. It was a bit too deep to sit with your back against the wall but we used it for seating at the table. With a table big enough for 6 but only 4 chairs and 5 people to seat at it, the extra seating came in handy.