Butler's pantry under the stairs

[kennyrussell]

Used four $18 'handy' storage units to build a butler's pantry in 'dead' space under the stairs.  We only build three units and used the last one to add extra shelves to other three.

Bargain at $18 a unit..

[KatieC]

Hi @kennyrussell,

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community! It is wonderful you have decided to join and share your storage project with us. You'll find Workshop to be filled with inspiration and advice for all things DIY and garden. Great projects by our members sometimes make it into our Top Ideas section like this top 10 most popular storage projects article, you might find yours in there one day!

You've done a great job utilising the space you have for a pantry while saving money. Do you have any advice for someone looking to create under-stair storage of their own? 

Katie

[kennyrussell]

Thanks Katie. The first thing I should say is that me and my wife are not expert DIYers. In other words, we won’t customise a solution to make it work; we will have a ‘problem’ and look for a readymade solution. In this case our kitchen cupboards were too full, so we looked for a shelving solution under the stairs.

The first issue we had was that there as already stuff under the stair. So, you need to be prepared to throw stuff out or look for somewhere else for it to go. We did both. We were lucky in as much as we moved kitchen appliances from shelving in the garage to the new butler’s pantry and, in the displaced space, we put the stuff from under the stairs.

I suppose the main things for us is that we needed access to the shelving and to get to other stuff we have under the stairs. This constrained the width of the shelving. Also, the height off the shelving had to fit the lowest part of the stairs. With these constraints in mind, we than started searching a few websites but always came back to the Bunnings one because of the range you have. We found these $18 shelves which fitted the width and height criteria we had. In fact, if you look at the photos they look as if they were made to measure!

They are quite flimsy as you build them but are quite strong in the end. We bought four units but only built three. We used the fourth unit to add extra shelves to the other three and the extra nuts/bolts to join the units together. So, you get more shelves and extra strength in one go.

[KatieC]

Hi @kennyrussell,

I really like your approach of figuring out what the problem is and then utilising a readymade solution. Too many times I have ideas (great ones of course) but unfortunately sometimes they create more issues or would not be functional so I have learned to approach DIY projects with an edited eye.  Thank you for sharing further detail on your process and money-saving tips! I am sure many of our members will find it useful. I look forward to seeing your next project. 

Katie