A key storage bugaboo resolved.

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To say that shelf storage in the typical kitchen is sub-optimal is an understatement. It is atrocious. It’s not enough that storage in the pantry and kitchen is commonly deep, add those low kitchen cupboards and you can bet that those items on the lower levels in the back will quickly be forgotten about or lost. And reaching in for the items at the rear to extricate them means removing those in front to make room, simultaneously incurring a slipped disc or two. A disaster.

Check your local Yellow Pages for ‘Shelves that slide’ and you will likely find a local vendor who will drop by, measure up and in a few short weeks you have sliding storage. That technology makes the lowest, rearmost items readily visible when the shelf is slid out and easily removed vertically without the need to displace hardware in the front:

Pots and pans. The shelves slide
out much further than illustrated here.

In the pantry the benefits are similarly great.

In the pantry.

I stopped complaining about kitchen storage once I had these fitted throughout the below-counter cupboards a few years back. They are very heavy duty, come with plastic door protectors and run on ball bearings. Heirloom tools, in other words. They became so addictive that, more recently, I called the maker back to similarly equip the pantry. Installation is non-invasive for your existing shelves remain in place.

As the second image above shows, the new shelves are far more resistant to bending than the original “builder standard” ones. They are made from plywood which is very resistant to sag, compared with the poorly specified particle board originally used.