Our House—The Addition of a Pantry

When we were finishing out the house here on Cedar Ridge we didn’t consider the storage needs we were going to have.  We had not been doing much canning and food preservation while living in Bloomington, Illinois.  We had always grown a garden and froze and canned much of our food while living in the country but when we moved to Bloomington we no longer had a garden space.  Consequently we didn’t have available to us the fresh fruits and vegetables we once had.

Getting back to the country we got back to gardening, canning, freezing, etc.  Where to put all of the canned goods?  I had built a small pantry just off of the kitchen but that was very small and filled up in a hurry.  We considered various ideas to create storage space.  The idea that made the most sense was to add onto the house.  So, in July of 2007 I undertook the project of building a 6’ by 12’ room for a pantry, primarily for the storage of canned goods and other food related items.

Our bathroom is fairly large and was already used as a utility room with our washer and dryer and a small chest freezer in there.  It was decided to build onto the house directly out from the bathroom.  I could remove the window, open up the space to create a doorway, and relocate the window into the outside wall of the pantry.


The photo above was taken of me getting the walls set.

The framing is done and the OSB sheathing is on.  The metal is also on the roof.

This picture was taken of the hole created by removing the window and enlarging it to make a doorway.  The opening in the far wall will be the location of the window that was removed.

Here you see that the window has been hung and most of the siding has been put onto the outside of the room.

The shelves that are shown here are to the left as you come through the doorway from the bathroom.  From the floor to the top shelf is a full 8’. 

This photo was taken recently after the canning activity of this past Summer.  Most of the vegetables were grown here on the farm.  The fruit was obtained locally.  We do eat well!