Assembling New Shelves
Oct. 14th, 2025 08:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerOur kitchen pantry has been out of service for the past several weeks waiting on plumbing repairs for the toilet. Until just recently we've been limping along with the pantry contents stacked up on one end of our dining room table. We never intended that to be a long-term solution... but we also never expected it to take the plumbers nearly eight weeks to come back around and start the repairs. So late last week we shopped online and ordered a couple of inexpensive shelves to put in the dining room as a temporary measure.
The shelves arrived Sunday night. We started putting them together almost right away.
Yes, like most furniture today— most affordable furniture, anyway— these shelves arrived in a flat-pack box and we had to assemble them ourselves. In the photo above and the first one below you can see us bolting things together with the help of hex wrenches (included).
What do I mean by affordable furniture? Well, as we were looking at various comes-in-a-flat-box, assembly-required shelves on Amazon Hawk asked, "Why don't we just go to Hoot Judkins and get another bookshelf like that nice one we have upstairs?"
The reason we don't is that two-shelf bookshelf— which, BTW, is solid wood— cost $300... 10 years ago. The same item probably costs $500 today. These shelves are $50 apiece.
And these are on the pricier end for what they are. The vertical frames are metal, not particle board, and the shelf planks are real wood, also not particle board. If we'd wanted particle-board shelves we could've paid as little as $30 apiece.
Once we got the two shelves assembled on Sunday night and loaded up, moving most of the pantry contents off our dining room table, we decided we'd like a third shelf! Yes, these are really sturdy, and the fit and finish nice. Plus, they do fit neatly under the kitchen counter overhang (no accident; I measured) and the black-and-dark-wood colors match our dining table. We ordered a third shelf Sunday night, and it arrived less than 24 hours later, on Monday around dinnertime. We assembled it promptly, and— after posing it for the photo above— filled it up with pantry contents
It's a bit ironic that we left our pantry stacked up atop our dining table for 8 weeks before buying these shelves, and now after we've had them just a day or two the plumbers are here, working on the bathroom, today! It kinda seems like a waste of $150 for these shelves. But I knew the timing would be a risk when I bought them, which is why I carefully selected these shelves for their size, looks, and quality. Once we get the pantry back in order— which hopefully we can do in just a few days, now— we'll redeploy two of these shelves to hold some of the overflowing materials in Hawk's crafting space. The third shelf we'll probably keep here in the dining room, tucked under the kitchen bar, to hold overflow that would otherwise clutter the dining room.
The shelves arrived Sunday night. We started putting them together almost right away.
Yes, like most furniture today— most affordable furniture, anyway— these shelves arrived in a flat-pack box and we had to assemble them ourselves. In the photo above and the first one below you can see us bolting things together with the help of hex wrenches (included).
What do I mean by affordable furniture? Well, as we were looking at various comes-in-a-flat-box, assembly-required shelves on Amazon Hawk asked, "Why don't we just go to Hoot Judkins and get another bookshelf like that nice one we have upstairs?"
The reason we don't is that two-shelf bookshelf— which, BTW, is solid wood— cost $300... 10 years ago. The same item probably costs $500 today. These shelves are $50 apiece.
And these are on the pricier end for what they are. The vertical frames are metal, not particle board, and the shelf planks are real wood, also not particle board. If we'd wanted particle-board shelves we could've paid as little as $30 apiece.
Once we got the two shelves assembled on Sunday night and loaded up, moving most of the pantry contents off our dining room table, we decided we'd like a third shelf! Yes, these are really sturdy, and the fit and finish nice. Plus, they do fit neatly under the kitchen counter overhang (no accident; I measured) and the black-and-dark-wood colors match our dining table. We ordered a third shelf Sunday night, and it arrived less than 24 hours later, on Monday around dinnertime. We assembled it promptly, and— after posing it for the photo above— filled it up with pantry contents
It's a bit ironic that we left our pantry stacked up atop our dining table for 8 weeks before buying these shelves, and now after we've had them just a day or two the plumbers are here, working on the bathroom, today! It kinda seems like a waste of $150 for these shelves. But I knew the timing would be a risk when I bought them, which is why I carefully selected these shelves for their size, looks, and quality. Once we get the pantry back in order— which hopefully we can do in just a few days, now— we'll redeploy two of these shelves to hold some of the overflowing materials in Hawk's crafting space. The third shelf we'll probably keep here in the dining room, tucked under the kitchen bar, to hold overflow that would otherwise clutter the dining room.
