Wonder Hubs Strikes Again! Pot and Lid Storage Solution.

A few years ago Terry and I removed the wall oven and replaced it with a range where the cook-top was located. He built in the microwave in part of it and made a storage cabinet for the rest of the area. The pans were a dilemma to get to. We did have a rack that hung over the island but Terry didn't like bumping his head on the hanging pots when he made a snack.  We also needed to hang it higher for more light in the kitchen. We removed the pots and took a few links out of the  fixture and now the kitchen is brighter.

  Now, what do we do with those pans? There isn't room for the bakeware in there either. I cleaned out the island and organized the tupperware type stuff with the lids and the rolling snack basket, so now there isn't room for the bakeware.

 

The bakeware is clean and waiting for a new spot.

The basket drawers don't really fill up the space they should for optimum use. They are full of lids and hard to find the right size.

 Terry and I were looking at Pinterest and saw a lot of good ideas. It is funny that we were planning on painting the main floor bathroom and got distracted by needing storage solution. One of the things on Pinterest showed cookware lids balanced behind towel racks. We talked about how many towel racks we would have to buy for all our our lids. Where would we put them? We have a spot in the stairwell that goes to the basement. It is a really tall wall with nothing on it. We have lived here 21 years and haven't done much with it except put jars of home canned peaches and pickles on the ledge. We also hung a quilt above a bookcase we placed in there. It was super dirty, so we started using left over paint from the laundry room project we finished a few months ago. We ran out of paint so we went to the lumber yard for more. While we were there we decided to get galvanized conduit pipe (3/4X10) to span the space for hanging the lids and pots.

 This is the hubs measuring how far out to put the conduit. (We were thinking of using copper pipe, but it costs more and also we have galvanized roof flashing for our backspash in the kitchen to go with our stainless steel stuff. The regular conduit fit the bill.)

 The paint wasn't a perfect match, so somebody (me) will have to touch up the splotches. The lid looks pretty good hanging there huh.

Now he is putting up a second pipe for the pans to hand from. He put big S hooks up for them to attach to. (3 inch open S-Hook Zinc) We bought all they had (12) and we needed 16 so in a week we will check to see if they got in more.

Hubs is pleased with the progress. He destined this pole to hold the frying pans.

Now for the stock pot pipe.

Most of the pans had these little rings on them. Some had holes. We had one without a hole and Terry just drilled one in the end of the handle and it works fine. The S hooks fit snugly enough that they don't come off when you retrieve a pan. They are loose enough that your can scoot them over for more room.

All the lids in a row.

He attached the pipe to the wall with L brackets. He used the drill to drill holes into the pipe for a nut and bolt to go through to secure the pipe to the L bracket. (Be sure you locate the L bracket on a stud for support) We thought we would have to put another L bracket in the middle, but the pipe didn't bend or flex. The pipe was $3.59  each. The s hooks were $1.98 each. We bought 2 gal of paint, nuts, and bolts. Terry said the whole cost for this was around $130 - $145)

Easy to get to.

This is really a simple solution to a common problem. They look like art work to me. (but that's me) You could do this on any kitchen wall that didn't have wall cabinets on it. I told Terry that this was my butler's pantry.