🖼️
The project:
We bought our first home less than 12 months ago, and I decided I was going to teach myself how to DIY. I work a corporate job and spend most of my spare time playing video games, so I've never really built anything before. Over five to six weeks, I learned as I went, made plenty of Bunnings trips (sometimes 4 in one day) and spent hours scrolling the Bunnings Workshop website and YouTube for ideas. The result is a completely transformed, custom pantry that I designed and built myself, whilst making PLENTY of mistakes along the way. My soft hands have become a little less soft.
- Materials:
Almost all of the materials in this project were sourced from Bunnings Virginia. I received some excellent assistance from the team there, especially when it came to the finishing paint.
- Tools:
Since buying our first home I have been slowly investing in low-to-mid range tools to start small projects. This project used a fair amount of these tools.
- Step 1:
The first thing I did for this project was spent a lot of time planning it. The pantry was a basic builder grade wire installation. I removed all of the wire shelving, measured the height, depth, length, and started drawing out my plans. Unfortunately I didn't take photos at this stage so ignore the bottom of this photo.
I decided to match the height of the cabinet to the existing kitchen cabinets for consistency. I cut down the plywood sheets and started building the cabinet structures. I used the Kreg Shelf Pin jig to create shelf holes on the left and right cabinets.
This step was done over several weekends as I was going quite slowly to make sure everything had consistent heights and widths.
Despite this, I somehow still managed to make each cabinet a different height.
VERY COOL!
- Step 2:
Once all the wire shelving was removed from the pantry, I had to remove all the wall plugs. This left me approximately 1,000 holes that I needed to fill with SpakFil, then sanded and painted the pantry to match the rest of our house (Dulux Natural White). For some reason the previous owners of our house thought "chewing gum mint green" would be a nice colour for every wall, door, and skirting board. We have spent the last 12 months trying to remove this colour from existence.
I also removed the skirting board so the new cabinets would fit flush to the wall.
- Step 3:
This was my first time making drawers as well (I really punished myself with this build). I was pretty happy with the result, and I used Spider-Man 2 on PS4 to help me get consistent spacing (thank you video games). I edge banded all exposed plywood edges during this point. I used our brand new Russell Hobbs iron for this bit and got glue on it.
- Step 4:
I apologised to my partner for getting glue on the brand new iron.
- Step 5:
Once I've installed the cabinet (I just put it in the gap), I started to build the face frame using 42mm x 19mm DAR pine cut down with my mitre saw, then glued and brad nailed into the cabinet. This was a very satisfying part of the build as it actually started to look professional.
It was at this point that I realised my drawer slides did not account for the 19mm face frame, which meant the soft close action didn't work properly. Another very cool miscalculation and learning experience. I reinstalled the drawer slides to account for this and all was well.
After this, the benchtop is installed! I cut down the merbau specrite panel to fit the top with a small and stylish overhang. I made sure I cut down the excess methodically because I wanted to use the offcuts to create my shelving lips. I sawed off 50mm of the panel at a time. Before installing, I varnished the panel with 3 coats of Cabot's Clear Satin.
It's looking like a real cabinet!!!
- Step 6:
Unfortunately I was in such a groove installing that I forgot to take photos during these steps but here was my process:
- I built the shelves by pinning the offcut merbau lips to plywood shelves, then varnished the whole lot
- I installed cleats into the studs using 42mm x 19mm Premium Pine. I glued, screwed, and brad nailed these into the wall. There were no studs on the left and right walls, so I used WallMate wall plugs.
- I brad nailed the shelves into the cleats from the top
At this stage I realised I had not calculated my shelf lips correctly and the side cleats were actually extending lower than the lip on the sides. This project hits yet another very cool milestone.
To combat this, I used the mitre saw to cut 45 degree angles in the cleats, which meant it didn't peak out of the bottom of the lip. It did the job!
- Step 7:
At this stage I'm starting to realise my calculations are absolutely garbage so I asked my dad to come over and help me measure and cut the doors.
It turns out that this is quite a long and painful process using the circular saw. After we had finished (about 8 hours), my dad tells me "this would have been way easier with my table saw, I should have brought it over".
I did not know my dad had a table saw.
- Step 8:
Painting time!
This project really helped me understand how slow, painful, and honestly boring painting is. The lovely team at Bunnings Virginia helped us find our right colour using British Paints, and my partner chose Indian Red (she made the right call, I wanted forest green).
I sanded each cabinet door, filled in any any gaps using timber fill, sanded again, used primer, painted, played Call of Duty whilst it dried, sanded using 600 grit, painted again, played more Call of Duty, sanded again, painted AGAIN, sanded once more, and finally painted the final coat.
The end result was beautiful. The 12+ hour process was not beautiful.
I finished this with two layers of the British Paints Matt Furniture Clear Coat. I applied this incorrectly and in a cold environment so it went cloudy. I had to sand it back and apply it again.
At this stage I am questioning ever starting this build.
- Step 9:
The finishing touches
We decided to completely remove the doors from the pantry to make the kitchen look bigger. We painted the trim the same colour as the cabinet. It works but I'm interested to see how long we can keep this clean aesthetic going for. All of our ugly food is now within the cupboards or put in fancy jars on display.
I installed the brass handles on to the doors and draws. The bottom one is not straight and it is driving me insane. I will fix this at a later date.
I installed the stick on tiles with surprising accuracy. We are debating whether to tile all the way to the top of the first shelf. Would love some opinions on this if you would like to share.
I had an electrician install power points above and below the counter top for our devices. I will be installing LED lighting under each shelf but these have sadly not arrived yet.
- Step 10:
And that's the build!
It has been incredibly rewarding. I would like to thank my dad for helping out, and my partner for dealing with the contents of the pantry on the floor for roughly 6 weeks, picking the right colour, and encouraging me along the way.
The pantry renovation was completed last weekend and it's currently too soon for me to enjoy it, I hate it but it did NOT DEFEAT ME!
As Albert Einstein once said - "The definition of insanity is doing a DIY pantry renovation with very little experience and expecting the whole process to be fun and smooth - you idiot"
