Wood Vegetable Bin

I've been wanting a bin to store our non-refrigerated veggies (onions, squash, potatoes if we ate them, etc) in for awhile now.

I was stashing some in a basket in the coat closet, some on the counter, some in a basket in the pantry, pretty much wherever there was a little bit of space. This tended to cause problems when I needed something and couldn't remember exactly where I'd stashed it.

Anyway, since I emptied the coat closet and dedicated it strictly to coats, boots, and other things that actually belong in a coat closet, I needed to come up with a better storage option for the veggies.

I knew I wanted something open on the front, with a tilted lip to keep things in. I vaguely remembered seeing something along those lines on AnaWhite.com, and after some searching I found it here.

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It wasn't quite what I wanted, since I wanted the bins stacked on top of each other instead of next to each other, but I realized I could easily change it to suit my needs.

I knew it was going to go in the pantry, so I measured the width of the pantry and made the bin half as wide, which would leave space for other things in the pantry. I also measured how deep the pantry is and used that to determine the depth of the bin. I wanted it about 34" tall, so I used that when I drew it all out and figured out the measurements of everything.

I used wood I had on hand: a 1"x12" board (10' long, I think?), several 1"x2"s, and a 1"x3" board.

I wanted good ventilation, so I used the 1x2s for part of the sides and the back, as well as to add "feet" to the bottom. I only had the one 1"x12" and I didn't want to buy any more and I wanted to start using some of the huge stash of random wood pieces sitting in the shed, so the 1x2s worked out great.

I actually cut all the pieces about a week before I ended up putting it together, which did result in a few things that I would have done a little differently if I'd been cutting it and putting it together at the same time. I think it still turned out fine, though- definitely useable as-is.

I used Gorilla wood glue and my handy dandy nail gun to put it all together. I think it took maybe half an hour? Since it's going in the pantry, where it won't be seen, I decided to leave it unpainted. So nice to have a project finished so quickly!

I'm gradually getting the kitchen more organized and more functional, and I love it! I hate having to dig through stacks of stuff to find the item I'm looking for, which is invariably on the bottom/at the back.

I'll show you tomorrow where this bin is now- more things getting organized!