In this post: How we creating some more pantry space in our kitchen with our rolling pantry shelves.


Shortly after we moved into this house almost two years ago, we gave the kitchen a bit of a makeover.

We painted the cabinets, added a breakfast bar, and used our Restoration Hardware Inspired shelves as a makeshift pantry.

rolling pantry shelves

KITCHEN OPEN SHELVES | WWW.AKADESIGN.CA

After all, they seemed to fit the space.

The problem was that we didn’t originally design them to hold food. We designed them for books. With fixed shelves.

So they didn’t hold as many small food items as we wanted and they wouldn’t hold bigger, bulkier things like our ten-kilogram flour pails or even family-size cereal boxes either.

After tossing around a few pantry options including building an actual closet-like pantry, Dean built me one big new shelf for the same space in the kitchen.

rolling pantry shelves

Open shelving works for us. The kids know my system (almost everything is labeled) and there’s plenty of space for all the stuff that doesn’t fit in the cupboards.

white dishes and baskets on open kitchen shelving

For example, my spice storage looked a little something like this before.

old spice storage

Small spice canisters, and lots of extra spice packets. Because the whole packet wouldn’t fit into the small tins.

Frustrating.

But now my spices look like this!

canning jar spice storage

keep spices in canning jars

All in alphabetical order! Hallelujah!

And my recipes, meal planning papers, and cookbooks all have an easily accessible home now too. Perfect for grabbing in a rush at dinner time.

recipe books on open pantry

Technically the shelves roll. But only if you push them really hard.

The type of casters we bought don’t have bearings so they’re tough to get moving.

metal shelf detail

This is good if you have adorable nephews like mine and you don’t really want the shelves being used as a push toy. 😉

We designed the shelving with metal shelves to keep them light and easy to clean.

metal and wood shelves

And we put some fake brackets on the top corners just for looks.

rolling cart shelf brackets

We were just waiting to find casters we liked – and the time to add them – before showing the shelves to you!

METAL CASTER

The kids getting sick this past weekend + being stuck at home = time to finally add casters and finish the job.

ROLLING KITCHEN PANTRY SHELVES

So what do you think? Do you have a decent built-in pantry at your house? Or have you had to find other options too?

shannon photo and sig oct 2022