Printable View
My Son built a new house about five years ago. In the walk-in kitchen pantry, they installed wire shelving. They are not happy with the wire shelving. He would like to replace it with something solid. We talked about putting plywood, and paint or, something else. However, the paint would scuff. The only thing I could think of was something like formica over the wood. But that too would scuff from cans or etc. being slid over the shelf. Any thought on what to use???
how about melamine shelfing with melamine edges
There are paints that won’t scuff. I just used one can of spray epoxy paint , weeks ago. No scuffs ,but the paint still has some faint odor.
A carefully organized pantry would eliminate having to slide the cans . The 1/8th white’ Melamine coated stuff would work well ,simply laid
on the shelves. Some people like seeing solid wood shelves ,often unpainted pine with small knots , and down the road the can bottoms
will polish the shelves.
Strickly looking for shelves? Is stain & Poly a choice? Don't
know how much room you have to work with, I have a walk in butler's pantry, it has 2 base cabinets with pullouts and a butcher block top, upper cabinets, an angled cabinet with 3 sets of doors and a narrow 1' wide cabinet with pullouts that have a total of 6 shelves. It is stained with poly. It was a tight build, two of the cabinets are floor to ceiling, built them in the pantry. Had to put a lot of thought into just making sure everything would open and close.
What about leaving the wire and adding 1/2" melamine on top with a return to cover the wire? Wire is strong for closet shelving, but is pretty annoying with smaller items. I added 1/4" ply to 1 shelve that has smaller items.
I'm with Rik...Melamine with melamine edge banding which you can also get as actual shelving material if the pantry space is adaptable to sizes normally sold. You can shorten them, but, well...you can't stretch them. :) Alternatively, pre-finished shelving material, typically maple or birch, is available from a good sheet goods supplier and is also already edge banded. It'd a very durable clear coat finish. I honestly tend to build upper cabinets with the same stuff to save time and not have to finish interiors. For our small pantry, I just went with the typical white shelving material from the home center and shortened to fit.
We have a small pantry and we found the wire shelves awkward.
So I ripped them out and built drawers and shelves out of cabinet grade plywood and drawer fronts in solid Cherry.
I built drawer height to work with various size bottles/can/containers that I found in the pantry.
I also decided on drawers going up to the height that could be opened and the contents still viewed. Above that I went with shelves.
Before
https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...Before1(1).jpg
After
https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...Drawers(1).jpg
https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...yAfter1(1).jpg
On the floor, I also put in a sliding pull out tray.
https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...awerClosed.jpg
https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...erDrawOpen.jpg
To use the minimal space, I also made these small shelves on the left and right.
https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...elvesRight.jpg
https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...helvesLeft.jpg
https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...piceDrawer.jpg
Being a pantry where most of the shelf is covered most of the time I would go with melamine also. I would seriously consider leaving the wire shelving, cutting 1/4" melamine to fit with a drop edge to hide the balance of the wire form.
Attachment 481269
Smooth, cleanable and well supported.
I'd be using this :
https://www.industrialplywood.com/br...net-liner.html
While there are paints that will hold up, they are 2 part affairs that are expensive, not widely available (especially in the U.P.) , must be sprayed, and are difficult to dial in the first time for a neophyte.
Chris - nice pantry, especially like the radius shelves on the wings. The crooked handles have me reaching for my ocd meds though.:cool:
I had thought of using the Melamine. Is Melamine the real thin white material that is laminated onto 3/4" partical board? If that is the stuff, I thought that the surface would not last that long with cans, and items being slid on it.
I do like the pull-out drawers which Chris made (nice job Chris) but don't think there is enough room in the closet for them.
Will talk with my son, and Daughter-in-law when they get home, and show them some options.
Thanks for all the input guys, nice to have someone to bounce ideas off.
After that was when I decided to buy TPI Drawer jig.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Sabo
The actual pre-made shelving may have a slightly thicker coating on it, but I'm not sure of that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gary Thinglum
Melamine is fine as long as you don’t get the absolute cheapest , thinest stuff around.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Becker
If you get a pantry from Calif. Closets Container Store , Closet Factory or any of the other regional players - you’ll get melamine.
melamine shelf with 15yrs of wear & tear from cans :
Attachment 481335
For my pantry George kinda hit the nail on the head. But I didn’t cover the wire shelving.Quote:
Originally Posted by George Yetka
Instead I consolidated the smaller items into long smooth bottom tubs.
My pantry looked almost identical to ChrisA’s before picture. A number of smaller items were problematic sliding, and regardless, trying to get stuff that may be behind other things was a pain.
My solution was similar to his, but without building drawers. Larger items on the top two shelves and with a few plastic tubs from menards for the other items and everything is neat and easily accessible.
One tub for all the various cans of beans, another for my tomato based cans, one for soups, one for fruits, compartmentalized tub for sauce mixes and baking stuff, one for breads and baked goods…
Just slide the tub 3/4 out and every thing is accessible. No tub is overly heavy so pulling them all the way out to restock is easy.
Another advantage is by grouping things you build up a mental image of what each tub should look like. When you look in the pantry for a can of tuna, you notice the fruit tub looks low. Time to find out what SWMBO has snacked on.
Melamine is the first choice but to go cheap and dirty how about white hardboard wall paneling $20.00 a 4 x 8 sheet, if you can tolerate still looking at the wire lip.
Stuff will slide smooth it is pretty hard and your done with simple cutting to size.
https://www.lowes.com/pd/47-75-in-x-...-Panel/3015239
The class act is like most said melamine .
mike calabrese