the 'rolling pantry'

We are lucky enough to have a decent sized kitchen. Unfortunately, though, it has one major flaw. There is no pantry. Which leaves us with 'the food cupboard.' When we moved in, this is the cupboard that seemed to make the most sense as a food storage area. To our dismay, after a few years of using this cupboard, what we are left with is an absolute atrocity!

Tins, jars, bottles and packets of food are crammed in, pushing whatever was unlucky enough to be there first further towards the back. Most of those items never to be seen again. I am certain a black hole has formed at the back of 'the food cupboard'.

Most of the time, in searching for, lets say - a can of diced tomatoes, we will remove half the contents of the cupboard only to discover that there are no canned tomatoes left. Instead, we find seven tins of tuna (!?) and a couple of packets of out-of-date pasta. As you can tell, there is absolutely no way to keep track of what is there or what we have run out of. It has been a source of much annoyance, too, when we reach in to get something and knock a dozen things onto the floor in the process. I feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about it.

Enter the rolling pantry! In my Google search for some in-cupboard storage solutions, I came across this fantastic contraption. It roped me in with it's blurb... "Imagine having six extra shelves for storing your packets, cans, bottles and jars!... this mobile pantry will wheel out of the way or roll into the narrowest space." This is the answer to our problem! I wrote down the measurements and set to work with the tape measure. Yes! It will fit perfectly next to our fridge!

So much hope was pinned on this fantastic pantry on wheels. I waited in anticipation for weeks. When it finally arrived, the box seemed far too small. Upon opening it, I discovered that this thing required a significant amount of 'assembling'. All I saw were planks of wood and a million tiny screws and wooden pegs. Basically, we had to build the thing from scratch. My husband and I actually had a fun time building the rolling pantry on Friday night, which is just as well, because it took a good few hours.

I was so excited to see it completely assembled in all it's glory! We nudged the fridge across a couple of centimeters, adjusted it's feet (it seems our walls have a slight lean to them) and rolled the pantry in beside it. It fits! I grabbed the handle to roll it back out again and it wouldn't move. It was stuck! What was going on? We quickly realised that the swiveling castor wheels were swinging out from beneath the edge of the pantry and into the wall as they were turning. Garrr!

Long story short... gaffer tape fixes most things but won't stop wheels from swiveling and the pantry is now in the laundry. I am going shopping for some fixed castor wheels some time in the next few days. Will this solve the problem? Time will tell....

I really hope this story has a happy ending.