My husband and I moved into our home back in 2004. It was brand new; we’d picked the lot, the floor plan and everything in it.
Even the wire shelving.
I must defend myself by saying we were told that everyone was using wire shelving. And we ‘d seen proof to back up this statement. We’d been house hunting for several months and every house I could remember had wire shelving in the bedroom, bathroom and hall closets. So I didn’t fight the shelving. The exorbitant fee for built in shelving probably had something to do with it, too. ;-)
Fast forward 11 years later and I’m done. Done. I probably could’ve gone on forever with dimpled towels and sweaters. But when I found myself in my pantry wiping up spilt syrup–again–from a bottle that fell over and dripped on the the two shelves beneath it and the floor , I knew I couldn’t go another day with that f*^%in’g wire shelving in our kitchen.
Unfortunately, I would have to. The syrup incident happened after dinner. LOL But that didn’t stop me from putting a plan into motion. I googled “wire shelving solution” and found that I wasn’t alone. Lots of other people were just as disgusted as I was with this shelving. I found loads of cute ideas and pictures of how to fix them:
thefrugalhomemaker.com
iheartorganizing.blogspot.com
fakeitfrugal.blogspot.com
salvagesavvy.com
As appealing as I found those pictures, I didn’t have the time to do a complete pantry do-over. I just wanted to do something to prevent bottles from tipping over, straws falling between spaces and bags slipping between the cracks. After more searching I found a solution–
Vinyl tiles.
I know! But it’s true. Vinyl tiles offer a semi-permanent, smooth & stylish solution. :-) I purchased mine from Lowe’s. They are 12″ x 12″. You can buy them individually for like .70 cents or a pack of 30-40 for ~$25. I’d measured my shelves and had a rough idea of the number of tiles I’d need, so I opted to purchase the pack.
So here’s my pantry pre-reno:
Steps:
1. I removed everything. Which was a good thing. There were some items that had …uh… lingered past their prime. I wiped down the shelves to remove dirt, dust and any other sticky residue that remained.
2. I applied the vinyl tiles. I removed the paper backing and then carefully applied them to the shelves. The sticky backing is good because it adheres to the wire shelves, so the vinyl tiles don’t shift. Plus, should I ever have to remove the tiles I can do so.
3. I replaced the items in my pantry, with some additional organization.
What do you think? Do you have the dreaded wire shelving? Do you have your own tips on how to deal with them? Or do you like them? Let me know.
Filed under: Mimosas at Midnight Tagged: author, blogs, contemporary, interracial, pantry re-do, passion, passionate, romance, Tracey Livesay, vinyl tiles, wire shelves, writer, writing
