How We Turned a Stairwell Into a Pantry

When you are working with a house that is over 100 years old, you can be assured that storage space is hard to find. We are constantly trying to find ways to add storage to our house. After our 2nd renovation, we had the perfect idea to create a kitchen pantry.

It was apparent to us that this was the best spot for a pantry. We had a tall pantry cabinet we added with the new kitchen, but who doesn’t need more storage? This space was the perfect location and size to give us the little extra that we needed.

The Before, from below

For perspective, here are some photos from almost the same spot in our basement before and after we added the pantry. In the first photo, we have the stairs before we closed them off (with the cat ruining the shot, as usual). We had painted them a bright blue color to lighten up the walk to the creepy old basement. To make the pantry floor we ripped out the stairs first, then added joists across the open space. The second picture is a view from the basement looking at the pantry floor above.

We added subflooring across the joists, and it was ready for hardwood. The process to put the floor in took less than a day, and we had no surprise issues, so we were happy with that!

Paint and Floors

One of the things we liked about the space was that it has a window. With the bright light from the window, I decided that a dark color would work great and not make it feel too closed off.

We painted the walls a dark navy color (Midnight by Behr) and finished the pine floors with a gray wash. After this the room was ready for our storage pieces.

Ikea comes to us

As luck would have it, right about the time we were working on this project Ikea had just opened roughly 5 miles from our house. I would be lying if I said this didn’t influence the decision to get this pantry done! It was like a dream come true to me to be able to drive back and forth, pick the products and make additions or returns all in a few short minutes.

The Cabinets

The goal was to have open shelving for easy access, and a few closed cabinets and drawers for hiding the extra kitchen appliances, storage containers, and a bread drawer. Here are the products we purchased:

Here we have 2 side-by-side Sektion high cabinets. The one on the left is the exact item linked with a lower cabinet that has a small door and a higher cabinet with a larger door. The right side is the same frame, but it has 2 drawers on the bottom and no door on the top shelf portion.

Insider tip for Ikea, when you buy a cabinet like this it doesn’t come as one set in a box. You have multiple products that come with it and you assemble them all. It looks like they don’t sell the exact right side item as a set anymore because they now have three drawers instead. The beauty of Ikea is that if you know the parts, anything is possible! If you wanted to recreate this look you need these items below:

• 2 Sektion high cabinet frames with 15″x15″x90″
• 2 doors (Akersund light ash finish)
• 2 drawers (Akerssund front w/light ash finish)
• appropriate hinges, drawer accessories
• Handles were leftover from our kitchen reno

Shelving

Finishing touches

Rather than just load the shelves up with our food, I wanted to make use of some of the pretty and functional storage containers that are available. Here are some that we currently use in the space.

All Put Together

Here is a final look at everything after a quick spring cleaning refresh. I do have some more organizational goals in mind. For starters, the cabinets need their own storage and organization containers. Notice I never showed you the inside of the cabinets? They need some help. In the meantime, have a look at where we are today.

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