Kitchen Cabinet Shelving Makeover

I finally did it!  My kitchen cabinet makeover!

It's only taken me ten years to figure out what to do with an oddly-shaped kitchen island cabinet.  It is almost twice as wide as it is deep, and a corner cabinet with an angle door to boot.

I looked on line for ideas, but only found things for common corner cabinets - either the type with a blind side (that you can put a slide-out contraption in) or with an L-shaped door, or an almost-square cabinet that you can put a Lazy Susan into and use up most of the space inside.

I began by removing the huge pile of stuff that was inside the cabinet...

... and measured the cabinet.  It is almost 48" wide and only about 24" deep.  The floor of the cabinet is an oddly-shaped hexagon with the door at the 1' 2" side.

I started by drawing the cabinet in Revit - a 3-D CAD program from Autodesk -

and played around with shelving options.  I finally decided that I would put shelves on both sides, that would meet in the center of the back, creating a V-shape from the view when you open the door.

Note that I added a lazy susan (from Ikea) just to give some perspective.  I also noted that I could put TWO lazy susans in it, if I wanted to!

Then I decided that I wanted the shelves to be side-by-side, rather than staggered.

 I liked the staggered idea, but the top shelf only had about 3" of clearance, which made it fairly useless.

Next I had to figure out how to hold the shelves in place.  Since our cabinets are super cheap, I am not sure how thick the walls of the cabinet are.  And, even if they are fairly thick, they are probably crummy material.  So I decided to put a bracket in the cabinet to hold the shelves.

This had two advantages - 1) I can make them so they do not connect to the cabinet at all, making them removable/movable; and 2) they feel stronger than what I imagine connecting to the cabinet walls would be.

Then I drew up the shelves - the bottom shelf will fit inside the brackets, and the top shelf will fit on top, making it slightly larger.  Here, you can see how really strangely-shaped the shelf space is!  Since they meet in the back of the cabinet, they keep each other in place, so I don't need any nails or glue to hold the whole system in place.

Since the cabinets are a little wonky, they were not exactly the angles & dimensions I drew, so I had to adjust a bit on the fly.  I was able to make small adjustments with my sander, rather than trying to cut it.

I went to Home Depot and spent about $40 on wood (our local Home Depot will make 12 cuts on lumber for free!  Just not weird angles like the shelves needed), and came home to cut things out (notice I used the pre-cut 90˚ corner) ...

... and screw the brackets together.  I also took the time to sand the corners and edges so I wouldn't have splinters.

My good husband asked me if I was going to paint it, which I decided to do - but only the brackets.  The shelves I left as raw wood.

First with a primer, then with color.  I used a color that matches my accent wall in the kitchen.

If I had a week or more to let the paint dry, I might have painted the shelves also, but I don't - and I don't want my things sticking to the paint.

Now that I have the shelves in, I can get all the stuff off of the counter top and back into the cabinet!

I love my new shelves!  I can see what I have in them, & actually use everything I have!  I call this project done!