Shelf Reliance Product Review: Bucket Shelf

Item Number 11960
Retail Price $159.99
Party Price $89.99
Consultant Web Price $89.99
Shelf Dimensions: 72 inches by 30 inches by 12  inches
Holds:  8 Buckets
Where to purchase the Bucket Shelf 

Pros:

·         The bucket shelf effectively uses a small amount of space storing 8 buckets while giving you easy access to each.  This is a huge improvement over my old method of stacking them high and deep and hoping I never needed to get to the buckets at the back.

·         The bucket shelf is easy to put together.  Since there are no can tracks to fit in the shelf can be put together in about 20 minutes.

·         Cost:  At $89.00 is a great price for shelving.   

Cons:

·         The bucket shelf will not sit flush with the wall.  Because the buckets sit in the shelf at an angle the shelf must be a couple of inches away from the wall.  The bucket shelf comes with two brackets that are used to secure the shelf to the wall, so it doesn’t accidently tip over.  But the brackets are pretty big making the shelf farther away from the wall then is necessary.  In my house space is at a premium so I’m not very happy about those 4 extra inches. 

·         The box it comes in says “box 1 of 2” which is totally confusing because it is only one box.  Note:  the box is heavy. 

My Experience: 
 I’ve never liked storing food in 6 gallon buckets because I didn’t have anywhere to store them so they got stacked up and it seemed like I always needed to access whatever was at the very back and the very bottom.  With that said I do have a few products that I store in buckets:  White Flour, Brown Rice, Sugar, Whole Wheat, and Oats.  These are the containers that I use from first and then when empty I refill. 
Here is how our bucket storage used to look.  Not really a great set up. 

So when I first saw the Shelf RelianceBucket Shelf I was super excited and bought one.  My nice husband helped me set it up.  And since apparently we are bad at measuring space it would not fit in the space under the stairs were we thought we were going to put it. Instead it ended up in my office.  (Yes I truly am a food storage nut if I’m storing food in my office).   Because there is carpet where we set it up we put some boards under it.  This is important if you set up any harvest shelf on carpet it can punch through your carpet.  This would definitely not make you happy. 

Everything went well; the shelf was easy to set up, after we found our mallet.  The only tricky thing was that the Bucket Shelf is designed to NOT sit flush against the wall, but out about 8 inches.  It comes with a bracket so that you can attach the shelf to the wall so it won’t tip over. 

But we did not have the space for that.  We found that the shelf really needed to be about 2 inches away from the back wall.  So my handy husband is going to figure out some alternative to attach it to the wall so it won’t fall over in an earthquake.

This is how my shelf is set up. You can see that it is about 2 inches off the wall where as the bracket from Shel Reliance is about 8 inches long.  That was too far off the wall for me.

Over all I’m very pleased with the shelf. It makes accessing the items I have in my buckets much easier. I think I’ll even buy a few more items in bucket now.

I added two things to my shelf. 

A Rivet Hook and  Scoop

One of the things I added on to my shelf was a rivet hook, which I love.  It is inexpensive (about $3.00) from which I hang a scoop so that it is easy to refill any of the small containers I have in my kitchen for daily use.  

Tips

·         I recommend that will all Shelf Reliance FRS Shelves you use a rubber mallet to pound the shelves into place.  If you don’t you end up having pieces wiggle free. 

·         I recommend purchasing a hook and a scoop and hanging the scoop from the shelf.  I love these hooks and have them on most of my shelves.  Having a scoop right there and ready to use really help to fill the smaller containers that use in my kitchen.

Over All:  I really like the bucket shelf.  It makes my buckets very accessible.  I would purchase this product again (in fact I might buy one for my Mom). 

Disclosure: 
 This review is not sponsored by Shelf Reliance.  I purchased all items described for my personal use.   I am a consultant for Shelf Reliance and when you purchase through the links on this site I receive a small commission, which supports this blog.