Under-The-Stairs Pantry

I finally finished my new pantry! This was the first time I tried something on the 'carpentry' (don't laugh) side of things. But I'm really happy with how it turned out.

This was formerly the little steep stairwell down to the basement crawlspace. After I lifted up my house and built a new high basement, sadly the stairwell could no longer go back where it was and still meet code. I had to sacrifice my back porch/laundry room/pantry to make way for a whole new stairwell.

Determined to make lemonade from 🍋 I converted this old stairwell area to a teeny (less than 5'x3'!) pantry space. It must've taken me 10x longer and 4 more trips to Home Depot than it would have for a pro, BUT yaay! It holds a surprising amount of items, as well as my brooms and central vac hose. This is located right outside my tiny kitchen :)

Constructed from pine boards with fir 1x2s for shelf supports, with some IKEA braces for extra mid supports. I built endwalls (on the exterior ends), and put supports into studs with heavy screws where possible. I knew I'd be putting lots of heavy cans on these so I really went overkill with the screws and supports, there are additional braces on the corner (not visible) between the shelves. The shelves themselves can still be pulled out (with some effort) as I haven't decided yet whether to stain or paint them.

#diy #pantry #mychristmasbreak #somuchpasta #understairs #storage #thisoldhouse Converted stairwell, under stair storage, tiny pantry