People. meet my PANTRY

This one was a long time coming.

I bought the boards several weeks ago

(right after we bought the wood to re-do Jeremiah's bed, actually)

and then worried about them getting ruined

before we even had a chance to paint them,
much less use them.

They weren't nailed together yet, but we had the upright and 3 shelves in place, and I was holding it all up
by pushing on the upright, while Tyler was looking at my plans, trying to ascertain what should happen next.
I was bragging about pointing out how great my plans were. I mean, I had even noted which boards needed to be nailed in,
and from which direction, and precisely where those nails should go (to avoid the shelf nailing debacle of early 2018)
I had just finished saying, "I'm so impressive" when, in my expressiveness, I knocked the ladder that was next to me.
The (brand new) little nail gun started falling off the ladder, so I turned to grab it, and stumbled,
and let go of the upright board. All of the shelves came crashing down.
Oh how we laughed and laughed at how very impressive I am 😂😂

I'd chosen MDF

since I'd decided painting would be faster than staining and sealing

and it's cheaper than plywood

and waay cheaper than dimensional lumber

and I'm really just 

ready. to. be. done.

with all this building stuff.

But since it was MDF,

and moisture could ruin it,

we shouldn't keep them in the garage 

with the other wood that's in there

waiting to be used.

And we couldn't paint in the house,

since floors were all finished,

and I didn't really want stacks of boards 

that would have to be moved elsewhere to paint

just laying around in the house

(that is about 40% construction /60% living)

but we aren't ready

to turn the old house into a paint booth

because we still have most of our crap in it.

So. yeah. I worried about my boards.

(Look at me - writing on walls like a real contractor/builder!)
This little guy sent me back to my plan.
My shelf was originally going to be a bout 2 inches lower.

Eventually,

we had 2 warm sunny days,

and on the first one, Tyler primed the boards

and on the second,

I painted them

(and then I laid them all out in the (new) house)

so I could finally start building my pantry!

Which would take

- like, a day -

right?!

You would think.

But you would be wrong.

I had wanted to use galvanized conduit for my upright shelf supports. We were going to cut
circular grooves in both the bottom and top of the shelves to hold the pipe in place, like we
did for the stair railing. But then we started worrying that all of them stacked on top of each
other, with the weight of loaded down shelves might cause the metal to cut into the shelves
further, so we decided no conduit.  I didn't want to go with 1x2s, because I already had the
image of  beefier supports. I thought about painting fat dowel rods silver, but I didn't want faux
metal and I didn't want stained dowels, 'cuz that just seemed weird. I decided I'd split a 2x4
in half.    The only 2x4 we had in the garage that wasn't being used to support concrete, was
one that the painters had used when they were spraying clear varnish on cabinet shelves. In
order for the board to take the stain, I had to get rid of the varnish. I sanded a ton, but obviously
didn't get it all sanded off. Which was fine, because we decided we actually really like it that way.

The pantry shelves
took me almost the whole dang week!

And the only reason they are done,

and I am typing this up,

instead of still building right now,

is beacuse

Tyler took the afternoon off work yesterday

to be with me.

And since I was building my pantry,

well,

he helped.

😄

And now it's done!

(except for the 2 dowel rods I need to purchase)

(what is it with me forgetting to purchase dowel rods??)

and I am so, SO tickled with it.