The three pantry cabinets are in. There were lots if issues. All told, I’d say there were 8 things that did not come out nearly But, of those, only two can be discovered and then only by close scrutiny. All of the others were addressed with an excess of labor. I am staring my graduate studies in "craftsmanship". (They say, the difference between a carpenter and a craftsman is how well they hide their mistakes.") I had more practice with this project than I care to admit.

I definitely learned a lot. And for anyone who is considering building pantry cabinets as large as these, here are a few tips …

• If you are going to paint them, definitely use MDF for it’s superior stability. All three of the pantry doors had an 1/8" warp. Two bow out in the middle so the latch resolves those. I’ll need to add a back stretcher to the third door.
• Add a fixed shelf in the middle of the carcasses for stability. At a full 8 feet tall, there is just not enough stability in the sides of the cabinets. Keeping everything square and true is nearly impossible and an 1/8" error will show if you are building inset doors.
• Seriously ask yourself if you want inset doors rather than overlay doors. If you want inset doors, repeat this bullet point. An 1/8" error shows and while it’s easy to get get your lengths and widths accurate, consider an 1/8th of an inch error over 8 feet is only 0.075 degrees !
• Rather than one full height door, consider two doors, one above the other. They will work well with that fixed middle shelf.
• Invest in joint connector screws and nuts. There may be other ways of pulling adjacent cabinets together but these are easy and can be added as needed during the installation process.
• Get help on installation day. The larger the cabinet, the more likely of bumping something and scratching that finish you worked so hard to achieve.

Given how small the kitchen is relative to the amount of cooking I do, the pantry is a great addition. Storage is the key to shopping on a budget because you can buy extras of non-perishable items when they are on sale and you can take advantage of big box shopping – especially when that big box store is a half day trip away.

I built a wide shallow pantry. This has a few advantages. First, the light from the kitchen is more than enough for the pantry and there are no dark deep places. Additionally, shallow shelves prevent stuff being pushed to the back and getting lost. Even with my wide stiles, I have about 76 inches of usable width. Each pantry has 8 shelves and could easily accommodate two more. That provides over 60 feet of shelf space. When it comes to canned goods, I can go 4 deep with bulk items. With shallow shelves, it’s not necessary to put different items in a row.

I still have the "bulkhead" cabinet that goes above the pantry. Then I will add the base trim for both the pantry and back side of the peninsula cabinets plus the toe kick for the rest of the base cabinets.

The next project is the large spiral staircase !