Butler's pantry makeover

[Acewoodhome]

A standard walk-in pantry was transformed into a stylish and practical butler’s pantry that’s easy to keep organised and tidy.

• The project
• Materials
• Before and after
• More inspiration for your kitchen

The project

We converted our builder-standard walk-in pantry into a stylish and functional butler's pantry.

We did all the work ourselves, from gutting out the original fittings to plastering and painting. My husband built the custom floor-to-ceiling open shelves using MDF, which we painted to match the Kaboodle kitchen cabinets.

We love how it looks and, more importantly, how the space works for us. Everything has a place now, which means it's always organised and tidy.

Materials

• MDF standard panels 2400mm x 450mm x 16mm, cut down to 420mm for the shelf sides. Same panels used for the shelves

• Pine for the base

• Kaboodle cabinets – two door cupboard 600mm, three drawer cabinet and 200mm cupboard.

• Raw MDF Kaboodle door fronts

• Caesarstone benchtop 

• Easycraft EasyVJ panels for the back wall 2420mm x 1200mm x 9mm

• Dulux Natural White for the walls

• Dulux Semi Gloss Beige Royal Quarter for the cabinets and shelves

Before and after

More inspiration for your kitchen

Find ideas for your space with our Top 10 most popular storage projects and Top 10 most popular kitchen projects.

[rubytuesday1953]

@rubytuesday1953  Absolutely fantastic @Acewoodhome. We have an actual Butler's pantry that we want to redo and your project gives us great inspiration.

Did you double up the shelf sides and make the holes for the adjustable shelves into the MDF?

Did you put a narrow piece of wood down the front of the shelf units to cover up the joins?

[MitchellMc]

Hi @rubytuesday1953,

Hopefully, @Acewoodhome can get back to us on the exact method they used. You can also see additional images from this project in their Butler's pantry makeover discussion. Those images show that they used a single MDF divider unless another sheet was retrofitted later.

It does look like they've applied a thin piece of trim timber to finish the divider off and give the appearance of thicker timber. Something similar to this Porta 20 x 8mm 2.4m Tasmanian Oak Square Edge Coverstrap Moulding. You can see a shadow cast on the divider in the image I've included below. I can only imagine it's from a trim piece on the front.  

The pins on the shelf supports are only quite short, but @Acewoodhome might have offset their location slightly so that a single MDF sheet could accommodate them from both sides.

Please let us know if you have any other questions about this amazing transformation, and good luck with your own.

Mitchell

[Acewoodhome]

@rubytuesday1953 no we didn’t double up the mdf on the sides, just single sheet and we offset the holes on each side, so they wouldn’t interfere with the other side. We also cut down mdf to the size we wanted, to cap the front of the shelves, to give it a more finished look 

[MitchellMc]

Thanks for the clarification, @Acewoodhome. It's much appreciated, and I trust @rubytuesday1953 will now be heading in the right direction.

Mitchell

[rubytuesday1953]

Thanks @Acewoodhome that's great. Your pantry makeover is exactly what we want to do with ours (only on a larger scale). We've been looking for ages to try and find the right configuration. And we love the door too. Can we rent your hubby to come and help us do it LOL 😂

[buggles]

@Acewoodhome 

This is so organised! Could you tell me where you bought the cane baskets and your labels, please?

[MitchellMc]

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @buggles. It's sensational to have you join us, and many thanks for your questions about this fantastic project.

Let me mention @Acewoodhome, so they are alerted to your question about their project. We have a couple of woven baskets that you might be able to use: IconChef Hand Woven Bread Basket 24x14cm and Flexi Storage Clever Cube 330 x 330 x 360mm Insert - Natural Sea Grass. 

Do you have a pantry renovation in the works, or were you just looking to reorganise? Either way, I trust our helpful members would be more than happy to provide some solutions for you. Feel free to start a discussion if you need any assistance or if you ever have something to share. You'll find tonnes of inspiration within the community just like this project as our amazing members contribute their projects here every day.

Mitchell

[Acewoodhome]

@buggles the baskets are from Home Storage and Living. The labels are from The Pantry Label Shop

[mahddi_farhat]

This is awesome. We've got the same standard pantry and the same layout. Can't wait to go to Bunnings for some serious shopping 😋 

[EricL]

Hello @mahddi_farhat

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community. Thank you for joining the discussion.

Let me tag @Acewoodhome to make them aware of your kind words. I totally agree with you, it is an amazing butler pantry transformation. By putting in panel dividers and adjustable shelves they've effectively made dedicated sections for all their food. Whereas the old shelving system would have them bunched up together with no distinction. It would have been very difficult to find a small can of peas hiding behind a tall box of cereals. 

Please keep us updated with your progress, we look forward to seeing the start of your butler's pantry renovation.

If you have any questions about this project, please let us know.

Eric

[mich1972]

Oh this is amazing @Acewoodhome 🤩 

[Renowayoflife]

it looks really great! we are in the process or building ours so loving the inspiration.

[jackieg]

Love your pantry project! Thanks for the inspiration. We are working on our pantry now using kaboodle too. 
A question on where you got your raw mdf panels with pre drilled holes for shelves?

and for the middle panel that you didn’t double up on, how did you get shelf holes in both sides of the panel (so you didn’t need to double up with panels)?
Thank you!

[jackieg]

@Acewoodhome I see I need to tag you to make you aware of my comment. Thanks in advance!

[JacobZ]

Hi @jackieg,

Thank you for your post and welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community, it is fantastic to have you with us.

Apologies for the delayed response. I'm glad you've seen that tagging @Acewoodhome will notify them by email of your question. Hopefully, they will respond soon with some answers to your questions.

In the meantime, I will try to help as best I can.

I can't say I'm aware of raw MDF panels that are predrilled for shelving. There are these CUSTOMpine System 32 Shelving White Carcass Particleboard which can be used, but I suspect Acewoodhome used MDF and drilled the holes themselves.

If you are predrilling holes yourself, you can place a piece of tape on your drill bit to use as a depth gauge. If you were using 16mm MDF panels, you could comfortably drill holes 6mm deep on each side or offset them slightly so they don't meet in the middle and you can go deeper.

Let me know what you think.

Jacob

[jackieg]

Thanks so much @JacobZ ! 
We can’t find and pre drilled raw mdf panels as you say. Drilling them ourselves seems like a scary prospect… lining them up precisely so the shelves will sit square! And the depth as you say. 
Likely we willl resort to the ones you linked us to.  Thanks for that. 
cheers 

[JacobZ]

Hi @jackieg,

For simplicity's sake, the system's 32 shelving panels are great.

 Keep us in the loop. I'd love to help out further if required and of course, see your project once it's done.

Jacob

[jackieg]

Thanks @JacobZ for our support and advice!