When we arrived, the pantry (and that's a generous description) was a wasteland. It was the collection area for all junk that didn't look right lying around and could not go in to the shed because it was not weather tolerant.
So the first thing we did was travel to the nearest town (technically this is a village) where we were able to purchase a wall mounted tv stand. This helped only a little and it became obvious, especially after we realized how many beer bottles lay abandon after a weekend of visiting (Canada's favorite pastime) that it would need much more work to keep up with the demands of friends and family and basically living here.
Off to Irene's shop we went and after a few days of rearranging (mostly digging out an old Craftsman table saw) we were ready to start cutting pieces for a cabinet that would hopefully hold brooms and mops, empty bottles (which must be recycled manually), coats and jackets as well as a place to remove and store muddy boots.
So... I bought some melamine sheets (cheapest material I could get). Melamine is basically particle-board with a plastic facing (an awful material). Even though it is a 'poor mans material' it was incredibly overpriced. And the quality of the underlying particle-board was pathetic. But we moved on and cut for a while and were soon ready for fit tests.
Now I estimated this beauty weighing in at about 140-lbs. so I decided to bring all the milled pieces (unassembled) to the little house and assemble it there. Well... Shauna, remembering some of my fine furniture pieces, envisioned a month long assembly process (I knew better then that) and proceeds to throw a fit. Needless to say I expected all this but was hoping to defer the fit for at least the couple of hours I needed to assemble the unit at which time I knew Shauna would calm down, and ultemately she did thanks to Myles and Cheryl who were there to help me, for as long as it took, to assemble and install the cabinet (if you can call it that).
Here's the finished product. It has a long storage area to the left for brooms and mops with a shelf unit adjacent to the right and a coat storage on the far right with a shoe/boot cubby and a place to sit while removing those muddy boots. It even fit... Next to the fridge and under the already mounted television. Who'd have ever thought.
There was some leftover melamine (and nobody wants leftover melamine) so I decided to build small cabinets (Ikea grade) to house t-shirts, sweat-shirts, towels and rags in (almost) the only places left in the house (shack).
There was a space on the left side of the bed.
There was also a little space in the closet, behind the hanger, that worked out to be a fine place to store shoes and handbags.
And thus the melamine was gone. Whew! It's awful to have to store such a worthless material.
Going To A Local Farm Auction -->
