Pantries - What does and doesn't work?

Hi,

We are building our first house and I've been trying to work out the layout of my pantry. It will be 4m long by 1.5 wide.
I know I want a bench and shelving but wasn't sure about cupboards, drawers or some slide out baskets.

For those who have built and you have a walk in pantry, what do you love about it, things that don't quite work or maybe
things you wished you'd put into the pantry?

Any suggestions would be great, thanks so much

Danette

That's bigger than the kitchen in our first house.
We still don't have a walk-in pantry and I'm sure you'll get good ideas from those that do, but I reckon some of it depends on YOUR lifestyle rather than what works or doesn't work for other people. What sort of functionality do you need?
For me I could see two benefits to having a walk-in pantry.
One is I'm short and our pantry cupboard holds everything but I can't reach half of it, so having things spread horizontally more than vertically would make things easier for me. If I had space for it I'd have step stool under the bench that I could pull out with my foot when I need to reach something higher.
The other is I like the idea of having an out-of-sight area to put clutter, tho for that I'd rather have a discreet butlers pantry style annex rather than a walk-in pantry, cos I'm not that keen on the idea of putting the dirty dishes that won't fit in the dishwasher inside the food storage area to wait for the next load.
I think I'd rather have a wider pantry cupboard, maybe it could be shallower but definately wider. And a visually screened off part of the kitchen with bench space and maybe a second sink for quick rinses.
How much flexibility have you got with your kitchen design, or is this 4x1.5 space what's in the contract and your looking at how to fit it out yourselves?

we have a butlers pantry- the door slides shut. Because of this we didn't put any cupboards in. Its all mostly open. Things are stacked on the floor and then we have a large stone bench that holds kettle, toaster, microwave and thermomix (so we have electrical points in there). The food stuffs are on open shelves.
We whip in there, get what we need then whip out. Its all about ease.
We shut the door when not in use and therefore the kitchen remains clean. No need for extra cupboards.

-we do have little drawer storage things for the onions/potatoes etc... just so they're separate.

Here is a draft plan of the kitchen/pantry area so you can get a better idea. It's more like a butlers pantry with a bench for coffee machine, mixer, toaster etc. There will be a glass door bar fridge underneath the bench as you walk in on the right hand side. That's about all I know that I want so far.

Jazzyjess, I know, the pantry is big, bigger than kitchens we've had too,lol. We have complete flexibility as it's our own design, it's being drawn up by the draughtsman now and a local builder is building the house so everything is up to us. I like your idea of a step ladder, I too am short and it's really annoying having spaces I can't reach. I guess for us the pantry will be a place for food obviously, to make our coffee, so that my mixer/bread maker etc is accessible and just for extra storage. I'm thinking all our plates, cutlery, cooking pots etc will be in the kitchen.

I like the idea of all open storage like you said Nonna, are your shelves fairly shallow so you can see everything?.

Thanks for replying, great to be able to talk to others about things like this, love this site.

Danette

I don't know but with a closed room do you need to be careful about having things that generate heat (bar fridge, etc) in there?
I agree with Nonna and yourself about the open storage. It's a big space but it's not so big you want to be cluttering it up with swinging doors if you don't have too. A potato drawer is a good idea though, don't potatoes go green faster when exposed to light? So a closed drawer specially for potatoes is a really good idea.

We have been in our house for two years and I love my pantry which is approx. 2.5 long x 3.6 wide.

The toaster and kettle live on the bench and the top drawer below them holds all the mugs. The open shelf above has tea, coffee, bread bin etc. Another top drawer has spare crockery and cutlery for cereal, toast and for when I prepare meals in the rice cooker and slow cooker.

Opposite the bench there are 2 shelves 450 deep for appliances and slots for trays, and 3 shelves 300 deep for the rest.

Potatoes and onions live in a bottom drawer with no direct sun, even though there are 2 small fixed windows, I have an exhaust fan for when hubby burns the toast, there are no fronts on the drawers and the pantry door is a normal one.

It is great that you can do your own design, there are thousands to look at so have fun researching.

Approx 6m x 1.8m here. Four shelves stretch along two sides - 2 top ones 30cm deep, 2 bottom ones 45cm deep. Everything is in open, baskets and glass containers help with organisation. Only the microwave and small vacuum are plugged in - all other appliances get taken out into kitchen for use.

Jazzyjess, I will ask about the fridge and the closed space when I go and see the kitchen place.

I love the idea of the deep shelves for appliances and the slots for the trays, thanks grumblebum.

Thanks for posting the photos of your pantry Kyton, I like that you can see everything clearly.

I really appreciate the feedback, thanks so much

We like our pantry. Is very similar to the plans you have. I will see if I can locate the pics.

here they are, this is when we first moved in, everything is much fuller now. We have 2 big windows in our pantry so have contained everything to just one side.

It appears you have a large space and not a lot of appliances so it might not be a problem at all.


So do I. Loving all the photos!

I'm glad I found this post. This is pretty much exactly what I've imagined for the small pantry reno I want to do at my place when we move back in. At present our pantry is a simple cupboard with very little room (food and small stuff only) and we don't have enough under bench storage for appliances, pots, pans, etc. So we're going to eat into the front room which is under utilised by us.

Snagger I love my pantry. It runs the complete length behind my kitchen but is hidden - just looks like a normal door. I find I use all my appliances a lot more because I see them all the time as well as food doesn't expire because nothing is hidden away.

Thats good to hear. Thats what I'm hoping to achieve with our plans. Good to see the measurements on your shelf depths. Would you make either one deeper or shallow or are you happy with the way they are?

Shelf depths are fine for us. The bottom two I made deeper to allow for appliance storage plus the microwave. It also allows for storage of things I only use once a year - like boxes of Christmas crockery and a Christmas tree - their boxes all slide neatly on the floor under the lowest shelf.

That's a good idea, keeping the christmas tree in the pantry! At what heights are you shelves at? I'm guessing they'd be similar to me plans which have mine spaced at 400 apart. I've got a high ceiling so was just thinking we could always have an extra one up high that would be good for things like the christmas tree as well but a step ladder and my height would be needed to reach it.

Danette

To give you an idea of measurements these are the shelving plans.
http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s507/grumblebum54/plan5.jpg

These are the slots in use.
http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s507/grumblebum54/PICT0013a.jpg

Maggie Beer said "only have shelves one container deep". I like the idea of not losing things, but my pantry won't be big enough to do that and fit everything in. My current pantry cupboards are just under 300mm deep = two containers and that's narrow enough to keep under control. I used to have a fridge-depth pantry cupboard and unearthed many ancient items when we moved after 12 years, so won't be doing that again nor a corner pantry - my mother has one and it's not easy getting to the back corner.

Can we expand this thread to reach-in pantries? Our plans are for what seems a pretty-good sized reach-in pantry, internal measurements of 1175mm wide x 650mm deep. Internal height is limited to 2100, so nothing should be too far out of reach.
I've specified u-shaped shelves that get shallower as they go up so that the ceiling light is not blocked by the upper most shelf.
The two bottom shelves are 250 deep on the sides, 350mm deep across the width. I picked dimensions mostly by shopping Ikea --for example, the floor under the bottom shelf will accomodate Hutten wine racks, and their storage container range will all fit in a single row on either the 250 or 150mm deep shelves.
Do others think that will be practical? Currently my 'pantry' is a 750mm wide particle board wardrobe with shelves in the basement, so almost anything will be an improvement...
Drat. Now realize that even though I don't plan to plug anything in in there, I should have added a power point in case I want some rechargeable kitchen gadget in the future.

We just have a reach in pantry too but I like the shelving ideas mentioned. I also came across a good idea in a mag yesterday. A little hard to explain but I'll try - the pantry is beside the bench top and they have a folding door where they meet instead of a fixed panel, the bench top extends into the pantry where you can keep your toaster/kettle out of sight. The shelves above and below this alcove are accessed by the normal pantry door. If I remember I'll post up pic tonight.

My ideal pantry setup for a two door 1000-1200mm wide is,

Fixed full depth shelf at bench height with full depth internal drawers below. 3/4 depth adjustable shelves above with stainless steel pantry racks screwed to the back of the doors from bench height up.

I am not a fan of the U shaped shelves, they eventually sag and getting stuff from the back corners is next to impossible!