I just had a big birthday and decided I am officially too old to crawl on the floor to get things out of my poorly designed and under utilized pantry. I have someone coming next week from California Closets to design and give an estimate (I think would prefer Container Store but they are way too far away).
The space is 65” across and 26” deep with a standard 30” door opening. Glorious 9 foot ceilings. Currently outfitted with 3, standard builder grade wire shelves that are bowing due to no support anywhere other than the 2 sides. I want to add seriously sturdy shelves (hopefully that will support my cast iron Dutch oven that lives on a shelf in the basement) and drawers for table linens. I’m not worried about the organization as this point but everyone here has really great ideas and so…
Hit me with your suggestions, helpful hints, what works for you or what you wish you had in your house.
Some shallow shelves incorporated in design. Those deep shelves allow foodstuff/other stuff to ‘get lost’ in a pantry.
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Make a list of the small (big) appliances you want to store in the pantry so you have adequate space/depth/height for them.
Lazy susans of all sizes are also great in a pantry for all kinds of things!
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LOL! I’ve bookmarked the one hoggirl shared on one of the other threads. I was going to order it before but am so annoyed by the bending wire shelves, I’m waiting!
Make sure you take advantage of all nine feet. The top shelf could be used for things like small appliances you don’t need that often. We have 10’ ceilings and sized that top shelf for the tallest item we planned to put up there. We also have a vertical divider the height of two shelves for 30” air filters and other tall things that we don’t want to store in the kitchen cabinets or garage. (We use our panty for more than food.) I also posted a pic of the pullout shelf DH made for me for preparing dressings and sauces in the pantry — where all the ingredients are.
Think about how you want to use the pantry as well as what you need to store in there.
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My dream pantry will also have some deep drawers. There are plenty of things that can be stored in drawers….not needing open shelves.
Make a list of what you plan to store in that pantry. Will it be foods, dishes, extra appliances, pots and pans, table linens? What? Let your planner see your list.
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No suggestions but I practically drool over the California Closet/Container Store ads. That’s a great thing to treat yourself to.
Enjoy!
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@ChoatieMom I am pretty short and am planning on needing a step stool in there. I have been eyeing something like these pull-down mechanisms to bring things down to my level. Do you have issues getting up to that height?
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I don’t know your budget but my dream would be a built in butler’s style pantry, like you see in vintage homes. My neighbor has one and it’s amazing. Bottom is all drawers, there is a counter, and then the upper shelves are all behind glass cabinets. According to the plans of my house, there used to be one in my kitchen but it was ripped out by a previous owner :(. It looks something like this, minus the sink.
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Dedicated place for stepstool. With your high ceilings you will want it right in the pantry. If you put hooks on the inside pantry door, you could hang a collapsible stepstool there.
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Oh, that just makes me sad. That pantry is way nicer than my kitchen!! This is what I’m working with…
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No. I am short, too, so we have a small step-stool in the pantry. The items on that top shelf are things I don’t use frequently, it’s not an issue.
That’s more what I have! Only difference is I have solid shelves that our closet organizer person put in for me when they were doing the bedroom closet.
Mine is just open shelving though and then I use wooden crates and baskets to group like things
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I’m short. On the top shelves I have appliances rarely used, unopened chip bags and cereal boxes. I have a collapsible step stool on the floor behind the door.
Get a long, narrow, LED light (similar to an old-fashioned fluorescent light) installed vertically inside one side of the doorway, and have it linked to a catch so that it comes on whenever the door is opened. You won’t believe the difference it makes!
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Is there any way to install double doors (not bifold) to open up more of the width? Like the picture below (from Home Depot site). Then drawers could fully open and be nearly countertop depth.
We had a similar pantry to yours (and found it pretty frustrating)and replaced it with floor to ceiling custom cabinetry. Ours was only 54” but still that space inside on either side of the door was a hard to use efficiently. I still wonder if we will regret the cabinets when we sell, closet style pantries are very much the norm in our area.
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As part of our kitchen reno last year, we did replace our bifold pantry doors with double doors just like @dragonmom describes. I love how it came out. Here are some pics, apologies in advance for the messy pantry.
I want to find some kind of rolling cart to use on the floor… Where I could throw the paper products we store there (paper towels, napkins, etc)
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That’s what my pantry looks like but with just a single door. I use the floor space for the dog’s food/treats/food and such.
Although HGTV would suggest otherwise, i think that’s what most of us are dealing with
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Our first home, an old Chicago bungalow, had a similar one- I loved it!
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