The Ultimate Custom Pantry DIY Shelves Tutorial

Come see how we were able to take our boring pantry into an organized space with these custom pantry DIY shelves

Thanks so much for all of your kind words and reactions toward the pantry makeover. Its legit one of my most favorite spaces in the house. Even though its just a closet, I love that everything has a place and will  As promised, here is an extremely thorough how-to-post so that you can do create your own DIY Custom Pantry Shelving in one weekend.

Custom Pantry DIY Shelves

Supplies:

Plywood to make shelves

Table Saw to cut Plywood– or have your measurements in advance to have Home Depot make the cuts for you

Lattice Wood to trim shelving

Wood Filler

Nail Gun with Brad Nails

1×3 Wood cut in strips

Primer

White Paint (or color of your choice)

Corner Brackets

Steps:

Start with a blank slate

Before beginning, remove the old wire shelving.

Then make any repairs needed after removing the shelving. For me, there were so many holes in the wall left over after removing the wire shelving due to the anchors in the wall.

To fill the holes, I used Sheetrock All-Purpose Pre-Mixed Joint Compound and a plastic putty knife.

After the compound dried in the holes, I sanded them smooth with a small sanding block.

Measure the Space to Prepare Shelving

After sanding, I headed to my local Home Depot to my plywood for the new pantry DIY shelves.  I decided that since the wire shelves that I removed were a foot deep, I would make my current Zsaqshelves the same depth. The height and width I waited until I got home to determine.

To get the most bang out of my buck, I purchased Purebond ¾ x4 ft x 8ft Maple Plywood and had it ripped down to several 8 ft tall x 12 inch- wide pieces., pretty much as many as I could get from each piece for my DIY shelves.

If you do decide to determine in advance, you can omit the table saw rental piece and have a Home Depot associate make the cuts for you.

Frame the Pantry for Shelving:

When I got home, my first step was to frame the pantry using this plywood, and then build the shelves off of the frame. Since my shelves were 12 inches deep, I made the sides of my frame 12 inches deep as well.

To attach the two middle pieces, I used three corner brackets on each. Two on one side and one on the other.

Cut the Pantry Shelves:

We rented a table saw from the tool rental section at Home Depot to cut our shelves to the sizes needed.

I really had no method in particular behind my shelf heights and placement, but knew I wanted each shelf to have adequate spacing in between

To attach the shelves, we cut 1×3 pieces of wood 4 inches on each side and made the back piece the same as the width of the shelves across the back.

Then we placed the shelf on top and attached the shelf to the 1×3 using Brad Nails from my Ryobi Power Nail Gun and Air Compressor. I attached the wood pieces first, then went along the top of the shelf and shot the Brad nail into the wood piece to make sure everything was nice and secure.

Once all of the shelving was attached, I went in and added lattice strips over the edges over all of the shelving. This gives everything a more finished look.

Before Lattice

 

After Lattice Strips added

I attached the Lattice strips with wood glue and Brad nails with my Ryobi Nailer again.

I filled the wood holes with wood filler, let it dry and sanded.

Then I used Kilz Primer to prime the entire pantry. Make sure this can be done in an area with LOT’S of ventilation, so I highly recommend opening some windows and doors.

I let the primer dry overnight and then went in and painted everything using Behr Ultra-Pure White in a Satin Finish.

Build Drawers and Attach

I decided that instead of more pantry shelves, I wanted to add drawers. This was simple to do.

Determining the sizes:

The depth of my pantry shelving is 12 inches and the width is around 18 inches from left to right in the middle column. Therefore, the drawers have to be 2 inches shorter along the front and back, and 2 inches shorter along the sides.

For example, the width of my column was 18 inches, so I cut my front and back piece of plywood at 16 inches, and for the depth, I cut it two inches shorter than the 12 -inch depth, so the drawer sides were 10 inches deep. All four pieces are 5 inches in height.

I attached them using a Ryobi Nail Gun to make a box, then added a piece of plywood to the bottom. I held it in place using a piece of molding that I got out the molding section at Home Depot. To make the bottom of the drawer, I cut plywood to fit inside of the box, then used wood pieces cut to fit inside to keep it secure. I grabbed some unfinished wood out of the molding section at the Home Depot.

To attach the drawers, I used 10- inch side mount drawer slides. They were easy to install simply by following the instructions that accompanied the slides. I then painted the drawers the same white color.

And that’s it! I filled the pantry based on the needs of my family. Do you think this is something that you are ready to tackle?

Thanks so much for stopping by. Until next time!

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