Low Cost Pullout Kitchen Pantry

[jteneyck]

A former colleague was using a wire shelving unit to store the Kitchenaid mixer, and assorted other seldom used appliances and supplies. The shelving unit fit into a narrow space that had been left between a floor to almost ceiling cabinet and adjacent wall. But it looked poor and didn't roll out very well, so they asked me if I could build a built-in pull-out pantry type cabinet. They also wanted a 3 drawer base cabinet to go on the other side of the existing cabinet. Sure.

The kitchen is a typical mid-level affair, nothing special. Red oak plywood cabinets, raised panel doors, lacquer finish. The pantry cabinet slide systems I looked at are very expensive; I knew those were out of the question. So I decided to use standard 100 lb load rating side mounted drawer slides, and to mount the top, middle, and bottom shelves to the door. The other pull-out shelves would operate independently.

Here's what they look like:



There will be a cabinet between these two; I just put them together for the photos. The drawer cabinet is a typical arrangement. I made three Baltic birch drawers using 1/2" finger joints, and mounted them with K&V self closing side mounted slides.



Here is the pantry cabinet with the door pulled open:



KV 100 lb self closing slides again. The door is screwed to the drawer boxes and slides quite smoothly. To maximize the width of the shelves I designed them with no lip on the side you load them from (the other side sits against a wall). The face frame is as narrow as I dared go, too. The right side will actually fit over the faceframe of the adjacent cabinet; the left side will be scribed to the wall.



Thanks for looking.

John

[bennybmn]

Looks great! I like the asymmetrical drawer sides. May have to steal that idea when I get around to doing mine...

[barryvabeach]

John, pretty cool. I was asked by a family member to make a slide out, and we looked at the pricing of the hardware, and decided to go in a different direction. So is the door screwed to 3 of the drawers, and the other two are independent?

[rudedan60]

I did something similar about 15 years ago.I built mine into the slopped closet over my Basement Stairs. Used file drawer slides and doubled then up. Longest I could find were 28" at Rockler. Have to pull out the Cabinet about every 2 years to clean the flour and such off and lube them up. Dan

[BillN]

That's a great solution, I wish I'd seen a few years ago.

[jteneyck]

Yes, the three shelves attached to the door are screwed to it. I guess I could have used an interlocking clip system, but two screws thru each shelf seems to work fine.

The door has to go on last during installation because I need access from the front of the cabinet. To make that process easier, working alone as I do, I'll clamp a cleat to the inside of the door above the top shelf. That will allow me to "hang" the door from the top shelf and I should be able to line up the screw holes then with minimal difficulty. Here's hoping.

Thanks for the kind words, all. Ken, I know you like white oak more than red, but quarter sawn red oak can look pretty spectacular, too. Same for curly red oak. This particular oak comes from those two 32"+ diameter logs I milled about 2 years ago. I got over 300 BF of almost all clear wood out of them. As payment I had to mill a 3" thick mantle from one log for the guy who gave them to me. I milled a couple more 2" thick slabs out of that log, too, and sold them. Selling slabs is the easiest money there is, as long as they are dry. People will pay a lot more per BF for a live edge slab with defects than they will for clear lumber. I think the places live edge creations look good are few and far between, but I'm happy others feel differently. But I couldn't sell any when I offered them green. After I kiln dried them I sold them in a couple of weeks.

John

[Ken Vick]

Another beautifully built project out of the Ten Eyck shop. Your constructions are engineer-precise and you are a master at matching existing designs and finishes. My personal prejudice is that it is a shame to put this much effort into red oak, but that's just me. Ken

[ruffcutt]

I built something similar back in 2003 but the customer wanted all the shelves/drawers to open at the same time and split in 2

[Steve N]

John, Ruff those are very nice cab units, also a very popular kitchen option. Using the side mount cab slides probably make them twice as strong as what I see in the stores. Nice job guys.

It makes you wonder how today's house wife would fare in a 1950 kitchen

[jteneyck]

Ruff, I debated doing it like you did; there are a lot of merits to that approach. But due to the required spacing I needed for the shelves (15" to clear a KitchenAid mixer, etc) I only had room for 5 shelves. That would leave one door having only 2 slides and I was concerned it wouldn't function smoothly or close tightly at the top.

I like how you added that vertical piece at the rear of the shelves. That must add a lot of rigidity to the unit. Very clever; gotta remember that.

John