Dear Lazyweb: shelving is hard.
Jan. 11th, 2006 02:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solarbirdSo we have this island in the kitchen, which has a stovetop on it. The people who built it were kind of more concerned with having a show kitchen than really cooking, I think; alternatively, they didn't use a lot of pots, and/or their ideas about storage were, well, odd, and I can't figure them out. Regardless, underneath said stovetop is a cabinet which is basically a large open space, except! for the bits taken up by the gas plumbing, stove vent, electrics, and fan ductwork leading out of the house.
We're currently putting our pots and pans there. However, we have far more pots and pans than can fit on the floor of this cabinet, and there's a lot of wasted space. I'm trying to figure out how to put shelving in here so that we can not have all our pots and pans stacked inside of each other, padded by paper towels. (This is kind of annoying.)
Oh, and I didn't mention: you can't use any of the walls for structural support. It has to be supported by the floor only. So it's basically freestanding shelves we're looking for here. YAY
So the space is shaped like this, more or less:
(This may and may not be to scale, depending upon your browser. I'm doing bad things with tables. The measurements should be correct, though.)
This would be looking down at the floor of the space, from above. The doors would be on the bottom of this drawing, along the 36" line. The doors are double-doors, hinged on the outside, swinging out, with a 35" opening.
I want shelves at 6" above the ground, 11" above the ground, 16" above the ground, and then, ideally, a final half-shelf (say, the left half of the above drawing) that's 19" above the ground. That's in a perfect world. This is to give me 6" clearing off the existing cabinet floor, two shelves with 5" of clearance, a third shelf with 3" clearance on one side, and to-cabinet-top on the other, and fourth half-shelf with only 2" or so of access height, but with actual storage clearance up to the top of the cabinet.
Right now, to get what I really want, I think I might have to make a frame out of copper piping - I can't afford the thickness for, say, PVC - and then stretch, say, screening material over it, find some way to anchor that down - any suggestions? - and hope that works. That doesn't really sound fun. I think it meets all the requirements - thin shelving that is freestanding and strong enough to hold pots - but I'm less than thrilled. I'm also considering putting in wood walls on the two 20" sides, sacrificing an inch or so of width, which would let me put in some form of wall-mounted unit. But those would probably have to be wood shelves, which are thick, and I'd prefer to keep the shelves as thin as possible for space-saving reasons.
Does anyone else have better ideas? Particularly with the copper piping frame system thought, does anybody have something better to stretch over the piping? Or any other better shelf answer for that system?
(To save time: do not suggest Storables, The Container Store, California Closets, any of the standard systems at Lowes, Home Depot, or McLendon's, or anything that costs hundreds of dollars. Thanks!)
(ETA: For some reason in some views, the align tag in my cell definitions are being ignored. This is frustrating and I don't know how to fix it. If you're confused by the drawing, look at it from my latest-posts page and it should work. Basically, the sides are 20" and the indent shown on the top is 7", yielding 13" of depth through the middle section. Mmmm, HTML.)
We're currently putting our pots and pans there. However, we have far more pots and pans than can fit on the floor of this cabinet, and there's a lot of wasted space. I'm trying to figure out how to put shelving in here so that we can not have all our pots and pans stacked inside of each other, padded by paper towels. (This is kind of annoying.)
Oh, and I didn't mention: you can't use any of the walls for structural support. It has to be supported by the floor only. So it's basically freestanding shelves we're looking for here. YAY
So the space is shaped like this, more or less:
| ^ 7" v | ^ 7" v | |
| ^ | 20" | v | | 13" | v | ^ | 20" | v |
(This may and may not be to scale, depending upon your browser. I'm doing bad things with tables. The measurements should be correct, though.)
This would be looking down at the floor of the space, from above. The doors would be on the bottom of this drawing, along the 36" line. The doors are double-doors, hinged on the outside, swinging out, with a 35" opening.
I want shelves at 6" above the ground, 11" above the ground, 16" above the ground, and then, ideally, a final half-shelf (say, the left half of the above drawing) that's 19" above the ground. That's in a perfect world. This is to give me 6" clearing off the existing cabinet floor, two shelves with 5" of clearance, a third shelf with 3" clearance on one side, and to-cabinet-top on the other, and fourth half-shelf with only 2" or so of access height, but with actual storage clearance up to the top of the cabinet.
Right now, to get what I really want, I think I might have to make a frame out of copper piping - I can't afford the thickness for, say, PVC - and then stretch, say, screening material over it, find some way to anchor that down - any suggestions? - and hope that works. That doesn't really sound fun. I think it meets all the requirements - thin shelving that is freestanding and strong enough to hold pots - but I'm less than thrilled. I'm also considering putting in wood walls on the two 20" sides, sacrificing an inch or so of width, which would let me put in some form of wall-mounted unit. But those would probably have to be wood shelves, which are thick, and I'd prefer to keep the shelves as thin as possible for space-saving reasons.
Does anyone else have better ideas? Particularly with the copper piping frame system thought, does anybody have something better to stretch over the piping? Or any other better shelf answer for that system?
(To save time: do not suggest Storables, The Container Store, California Closets, any of the standard systems at Lowes, Home Depot, or McLendon's, or anything that costs hundreds of dollars. Thanks!)
(ETA: For some reason in some views, the align tag in my cell definitions are being ignored. This is frustrating and I don't know how to fix it. If you're confused by the drawing, look at it from my latest-posts page and it should work. Basically, the sides are 20" and the indent shown on the top is 7", yielding 13" of depth through the middle section. Mmmm, HTML.)
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 12:30 am (UTC)An alternate construction material: Most hardware stores have a bin of angle iron in various shapes & sizes. One could probably assemble a frame out of that. Use nuts&bolts to secure the horizontal beams at the appropriate heights.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 01:37 am (UTC)As for the shelf material ...you've got a lot of old pegboard scraps, but that might not be strong enough. How about plain old plywood? If air needs to circulate, cut holes in it.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 05:22 pm (UTC)What I really want is high-strength tinkertoy. ^_^
no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 06:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 12:39 am (UTC)I'd build it as a rectangle though, I don't think I'd try to make it the exact same shape as those corners would probably be too deep to be practical given the amount of extra labour.
Another option would be to build a high shelf with hooks on it and just hang everything up, but not many people do that anymore.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 05:24 pm (UTC)The hanging pots idea sounds good. I used to hang a bunch of pots at the old house, where we had a wall space for it. I poked about at it some last night; it might! just! work! etc. ^_^
no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 05:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-16 05:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 03:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 05:25 pm (UTC)Storing Cooking Pots
Date: 2006-01-12 01:28 pm (UTC)On a related note, I don't nest my pots. I put the lids on upside down and stack them. This takes more room, but they don't stick one inside the other and the right lid is always with the pot. The stacks are also more stable, and don't lean or fall over.
Re: Storing Cooking Pots
Date: 2006-01-12 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 02:44 pm (UTC)one thing I really like about all the rest of my cabinetry is that we have pull-out shelves. They're custom-made and very thin. They just run on wood, no rails. I could send you pictures if you're interested. The shelves are quite thin, but very sturdy, and I think they would meet your needs very well.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 01:22 pm (UTC)I think the guy who redesigned our interior owned stock in wood, especially thin wood panels. It's EVERYWHERE in our house. :)
Try stainless..
Date: 2006-01-12 04:29 pm (UTC)