Milk Carton Storage Dispenser

So we're still happily trapped at home. I could get the truck out quite easily but feel little need to leave the homestead! 

Looking at our food supplies the only thing that we're going to be short of (besides potatoes - but that's my own stupid fault) is milk. 

The kids drink 26 pints of milk a week on average, and there's no way we could store a huge amount, not much more than a week or so worth, unless I dedicated a freezer to it! We had a few stored in the the freezer anyhow but we're getting down it now. Maybe we need a cow...

We also keep a fair bit of soya milk in the house as well. I can't drink milk (but can have cheese and yogurt) so the soya is mainly for me. I do cook with it and use it on our porridge in the morning so it's useful to have around. Looking at our stock though we're down to the last three cartons. This is mainly because they get shoved on the floor in the pantry and we're never sure how many we've got as it's always so full of stuff. 

Well I decided it was time to get them organised. 

I love my tin can storage door and we use it daily, it makes everything easy to find and to see how much we've got of everything, so I decided something similar was in order. 

Measuring the space I had I could see I could make something to hold ten cartons of milk and ten tins of tuna (that sized tin isn't on my storage door). Whatever you do though, don't cook with the tuna and the milk, that wouldn't be nice! 

Knocking this up took me about three quarter of an hour with some scrap ply from the doors I'm making. I just glued and pinned everything together, nothing fancy. Slots cut on the front let you see what you've got and to slow down the speed that you drop things in there.
You could easily make this with hand tools but it might take you a bit longer, I used a jig saw, circular saw and a compressor with nail gun. All the measurements are just to suite the size of the carton and tin can.

There's a little ramp at the bottom to catch the tuna tins, check out this post to see what I made last time. 

Setting out the spacing for the carton and the tuna tins

Cutting the top, having slots in it means you can see how much of everything you've got. 

The completed rack

The rack in place in the pantry - just need to fill it now! 

I'm quite pleased with this little project, it doesn't take long to get organised, even if it doesn't look that pretty.

That's ten litres of soya milk that can be seen, checked and stored easily, with the oldest being used first every time, same with the tuna. I use a couple of litres of soya a week, so that's roughly five weeks worth.

This would also work great for UHT milk, or anything in a carton.

If you've any other food storage ideas then please let me know, I might end up building it!

What do you think?

Have you got anything like this in your house to keep you organised? I'd love to see it if you have! Send me a picture!

2022 - Edit - This unit never worked very well. Just too much weight on the cartons I think. Not one I'd recommend copying.