Your refrigerator needs a few inches of space on the hinge side in order for the door to open fully. If there’s a wall on that side it means you leave a gap. A bit of lumber and some inexpensive hardware can turn that gap into a pull-out pantry.
This picture is from [Ratmax00’s] pantry project. He had a 6.5″ gap to work with and started the build by making a wooden frame using pocket screws for the butt joints. Four casters were added to the bottom to make it roll in and out easily. He needed a handle and a way to make sure commodities didn’t fall off the shelves. He chose to use a 3D printer for brackets that hold the fence dowels and a custom handle. If you don’t have that just hit the cabinet hardware aisle at your local home store.
We wonder if it would have been possible to use full-extension draw rails mounted above and below the cabinet in addition to a couple of wheels? This would help keep the pantry from scraping against the fridge or the wall.
While you’re building bookshelf sized things why not get to work on a hidden door as well?
Something to consider is refrigerators and freezers also need an air-gap so it can cool it self. Just put your hands on the side and feel for your self.
Most of them only need an air gap at the bottom, back and top, and most of those already have spacers that prevent you from easily covering those gaps.
They may be marginally more effective if they are entirely free standing, but that would just look odd in a modern kitchen.
But he shouldn’t put the spices in there, spices should be kept in a cool dark space, and while this shelf may be dark I’m sure that, because of the hot air from the fridge it’s not cool. And instead of full extension door rails (next project) he could just put “sliders” against the fridge and wall.
A nice place for unripe fruit then I guess.
Good place for pasta, salt, sugar and other reasonably heat-insensitive ingredients
Awesome space saver! Would hate to see it ever topple over though. I see [Ratmax00] is already considering ways to prevent that possibility.
A 3d printer to make brackets for the fence dowels? I like to introduce him to a brand new technology called a Power Drill. It has this amazingly wide range of attachments (called ‘bits’) that fit into the front face of the Power Drill. Using these ‘bits’, one can achieve remarkably accurate holes in all facets, including face plane symmetry, sizing tolerances to 0.001″, and all this with the ease of a hand-held tool that creates these holes in seconds.
You mean exactly like he did for the shelves?
he actually did say you could find these parts at the hardware store. He did this for fun, if you’ve got a 3d printer you’ll find all kinds of “excuses” to use it
Yup, drill a thru hole on the back board and a blind hole half-way through the front board. Slide the dowel in from the back and put glue on the last half-inch before you push it in. Way, way easier than 3D printing brackets and surely stronger.
@Gryphon, +1 ;) where do I get one?
belongs on lifehacks as this is more of a simple build for easier living than a hack. Still a good simple idea though =)
+1
But if i wanted the lifehacks i would follow that part of the site.
Please dont force me to give up on hackaday by posting non-hacks. There are still plenty of good stuff here but with this and the occasional “whats happening on our other sites”-ads its starting to go in the wrong direction :(
Ofcourse the owners of HAD are free to run it into the ground if they wish, it just saddens me to be watching the process.
Antivirus is saying the picture is a threat. ¿Qué huh?
avast did the same thing to me earlier with a different post
My father in law did the same thing on a larger scale with 4 pocket door hardware kits, that way they don’t/can’t topple. the racks he made were 12″ deep so he can store a mess of stuff on them. then stacked them so when closed it just looks like cabinet walls, no biggie. nice job on this one. cheaper too.
No sense in using draw rails (Though did you mean drawer rails?) as you can just by sticky pads of felt from the hardware store and cut small squares or corner pieces for the back and front. This way the roll around shelf (which is merely all it is) can be easily moved for when you want to clean under it.
I did this 15 years ago in my motorhome, full-extension runners are better I think, two on the bottom and a third at the top to keep things square.
Great!
Fridges usually have the hinges out on the corners that allow full freedom of placement and motion, unlike most fancy cabinet doors that don’t open any more than 90 degrees.
Fridges are designed to be set against the adjoining cabinetry. Older ones had heaters! allover the place and the hot coils in the sides between the thin insulation and the cold insides. That is gone now thanks to energy awareness. If they’d only put the whole hot stuff on top instead of under the whole cold space. Heat rises! I had a GE ” monitor top” once, it ran far less than any modern fridge. Designed when iceboxes were the norm. No electric heaters at all. A textbook on refrigeration 30 years ago stated in the first chapter a modern fridge is designed to run ONE THIRD OF THE TIME!
My pantry pulls out but I don’t!
Can’t pull out if you never get in! ;)
Lol, U kno that was not necessary.
Laaaarrrrrrryyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!
Did this 4 years ago when I got a matched set of Sears’ 35″W x counter depth refrig/freezer . Didn’t realize it was particularly clever or a hack. I just had a few feet left on that wall, after I put in the new frig/freez, but not enough for usable counter space.
I do love mine, though. They should be a routine option.