Toy Kitchen Pantry
I’ve been working on organizing my pantry for a while now. It’s an ongoing process. One of those two steps forward one step back kind of things. It will never be neat and tidy enough to be Instagram or Pinterest worthy, but that’s ok. As long as I can find things when I need them I’ll try not to stress too much about it.
Messy Kitchen = Messy Living Room
My messy kitchen supplies aren’t the only ones in my house that bug me. Little Peanut has a toy kitchen and a number of food and accessory items to go with it. Since we spend most of our time downstairs, we have a corner of our living room set up as a “house” play area for the kids. This area consists of a toy workbench, a toy kitchen, all of the accessories that go with those and a cardboard box house front.
Since this is in our main living area we try to keep things picked up. The workbench is pretty self-contained, and there’s a storage basket for the miscellaneous toys/games, but the kitchen toys don’t all fit in the kitchen and the box I’ve been using to keep the overflow in seems less than tidy.
Pint-sized Pantry
I’ve been thinking for a while now that a little pantry/cabinet next to her kitchen would be great. I even went so far as to measure the space, sketch out what I was thinking, and spec the pieces needed at Home Depot. Then the reality that I have neither the space nor the tools for a woodworking project.
The idea got back burnered until the other day when I was taking out the recycling that included a large empty box of Pull-Ups. Ding! This box was just about the right size and sturdiness for me to make a test pantry.
If it doesn’t work, the only cost was a few minutes of my time. If it does work, then awesome, and I’ll put a little more time into it later to make it prettier. *Spoiler Alert* It worked and quite well.
This ended up being super easy to make and really did only take a few minutes of hands-on time. The only supplies needed were two boxes, a box knife and some glue (I used Elmer’s white glue).
Step 1
Using the box knife, I cut the short flaps off of the open side of the Pull-Ups box.
I actually wanted 3 shelves and happened to have a small box about the same width that I also cut a flap off of.
Step 2
Lay the box you are using as the pantry down. Position the short flaps you removed in Step 1 in the box so you can determine how far apart to space your shelves. It may be helpful to grab a couple of the items you want to put in the pantry to make sure the shelves are spaced far enough apart. Use a pen or pencil to make a small mark where the shelves go.
Step 3
Put glue along the long edge of one of the short flaps that you cut off in step 1. Using your marks as guides, position the flap glue side down into the box. Repeat with remaining “shelves.”
Step 4
Let dry.
Other than stashing the toys inside, that’s it.
The box flaps are surprisingly sturdy and have been able to withstand the weight of the kitchen items and the stress of the kids taking things out and putting them back in.
I still need to add handles and a fastener to keep the “doors” closed, but I wanted to make sure it could withstand the kids before I went through the effort. So far so good.
My current plan is to decorate the outside of the box with either paint or wrapping paper before attaching handles. Peanut is really into pink and puffy so for handles I’m thinking of using low temp hot glue to attach some large pom poms and a rubber band. When I finally get around to completing it, I will be sure to upload a photo.
