It was hard to organize the pantry aside from stacking a bunch of stuff in a pile, so it was clear that in order to utilize our 4.4 cubic meter (155 cubic foot) pantry, we would need some shelves, and tall ones.

We headed out on a Saturday for a day full of shopping at IKEA, Obi, Jumbo, Micasa, Coop Bau und Hobby and Migros Do-it. We were hoping to find shelves for the basement as well, but all the ones at Obi were weirdly rusty and all the other stores had really expensive metal shelves. We ended up passing on them because in the same trip we bought a very heavy basic picnic table and four tall bambu plants for the balcony!

Before we picked up the bambu and picnic table at Jumbo, we had to decide about the reduit shelving. We looked over all the options of wall mounting and discussed what was a good idea cost-wise and practically with our cement and brick walls all around. Thinking in the heat of Jumbo (it felt like a furnace!) was overwhelming, but after melting for 30 minutes, we finally decided on some wooden shelves.

Back at home we got to assembling!

It was a little more expensive to buy a corner shelf, but we thought it would be handy, so we bought it anyway. After the fact, I realized that the additional beams required for the corner shelf make it kind of annoying to use, so I sort of wish we’d just bought normal rectangles and put them next to each other.

Anyway, whatever… we bought them. It’s done.

It was a tight fit in the back of the reduit to install the shelves and my back was actually giving me a lot of problems after pulling it on Friday while moving a sofa with Kay.

When the entire shelf was done, I actually had to crawl out through the bottom area before we could scoot the shelf into place in the corner.

Et voilà… organized storage!

I’ve got cleaning products, plastic bags, recycling, brooms, electrical items, towels, etc.

Eventually I would like to move the bath towels out of here, but we found out that my idea for a bed with drawers won’t work because the frames we bought for our Tempur mattresses have motors that don’t work with beds with drawers. (Sadness!)

The only other thing I’m wondering is how I would possibly fit an extra fridge or freezer in this reduit… but I’ll save that project for a later date.

How do you organize your closet spaces?