Browse Forums Kitchen Corner 1 Jun 12, 2017 4:42 pm In our new house we had a butlers pantry installed, which is quite large to say the least. Long story why which won't go into at the moment! Anyway I originally wanted a sliding timber with frosted glass door to close it off but the builder said no. One side the cavity wouldn't have been big enough, which is true, and the other side would have interfered with with the gas lines feeding the cooktop. I still reckon it could have been possible, even if it mean wasting 90mm to build a second wall behind the gas cooktop in the main kitchen, so alas what we have is an open pantry. My problem is when you look in it looks empty and bare on the back wall as you can see in the picture below. The cavity where the packing box is, is designed for a wine fridge which will be built in, it is on it's way. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ So looking for ideas on how to spruce it up. A different colour on the back wall possibly, some shelves. In hindsite probably should have had a corner pantry and extended the benchtop around. What we were thinking was an open cabinet above where the kettle is, but think it also needs some colour and or something else too. Also what about the back splash. Probably going for glass, but what colour? Our kitchen is Gun Metal Glitz but thinking of going something a bit different, even possibly plain white or even jet black. Thoughts? Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ How can I make Pantry look better 2Jun 12, 2017 5:57 pm Who paid for the house, you or your builder? If you wanted a door, he should have provided one. Anyway, why not now have a door installed the same material as your kitchen cabinetry - that would at least isolate the scullery? With respect to the inside of the scullery, I don't think it is meant to look pretty as it is suppose to be a hard-working functional space. That said, some overhead shelving would not go astray, although the difficulty is that you cannot interfere with the operation of the doors of the cupboard next to the fridge. Actually, I'm quite intrigued by your choices in designing your scullery. We have one in our design, but intend on having most of the shelving open. We also put the fridge and wine fridge in the kitchen, as these are accessed much of the time. I think we were right about the fridge location, but based on your choice, I'll have a good think about where the wine fridge should be. Is your dishwasher in the scullery too? Re: How can I make Pantry look better 3Jun 12, 2017 7:13 pm We will have an empty back wall in our pantry which is wider than I realised now I see it in real life. We were planning on putting either a blackboard or organisation wall up. (But then we do have doors) Just so it doesn't look so bare. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ majestic35.weebly.com Re: How can I make Pantry look better 5Jun 12, 2017 7:45 pm arcadelt Who paid for the house, you or your builder? If you wanted a door, he should have provided one. Anyway, why not now have a door installed the same material as your kitchen cabinetry - that would at least isolate the scullery? With respect to the inside of the scullery, I don't think it is meant to look pretty as it is suppose to be a hard-working functional space. That said, some overhead shelving would not go astray, although the difficulty is that you cannot interfere with the operation of the doors of the cupboard next to the fridge. Actually, I'm quite intrigued by your choices in designing your scullery. We have one in our design, but intend on having most of the shelving open. We also put the fridge and wine fridge in the kitchen, as these are accessed much of the time. I think we were right about the fridge location, but based on your choice, I'll have a good think about where the wine fridge should be. Is your dishwasher in the scullery too? The lack of a door was part of a larger saga, and I should have said builder said not technically possible not an absolute no. But bu this point I was over it all. The problem is where our kitchen is is actually the dining room, we moved it here and was planning on having a more traditional pantry behind. (original design lack a decent pantry). But to do what we wanted to do our stairs had to be slightly redesigned to move the bottom step about 300mm in. Turns out when it got to plan stage that wasn't technically possible, so we were left with coming up with something else or the orginal design. So what we did is towards the front of the house were two small living rooms, so what we did was made one 1.2m bigger, so its now a decent size and then used the remainder for this pantry, and on the wall on the other side of the fridge is a study nook and a coats cupboard. Actually worked out better, but now we have this large pantry. But overall have been happy with it. The house was finished about 12 months ago but we rented it out as we were living overseas. The pantry was actually empty and all the work in there is mine. You will find some discussions in this very thread about it. We have been back a few weeks and it is working as we desired, which is food storage and prep in pantry, cooking, serving and cleaning in main kitchen. So yes our dishwasher is in the kitchen, it cannot be seen in the pic but the main kitchen sink and dishwasher are just to the left of the cabinetry that houses the microwave and wall oven. That said I was thinking of moving the dishwasher into the pantry and put the wine fridge in the kitchen, but decided against it as all our crockery is stored in the kitchen. So it makes sense. Crockery never makes its way into the pantry. And I would have went open cabinets if there was a door on the pantry. And although not clear the cupboard to the right of the fridge contains the home IT hub in the top section and more storage in the bottom. So that couldn't have been neatly left wide open anyway. A few compromises too many for my liking, but we will live with it, if we can just tone down the bareness. In fact even having the backsplash may be enough to tone it down. Re: How can I make Pantry look better 8Jun 12, 2017 7:50 pm arcadelt I like the blackboard idea! Same too. Though think the second pic might be what we need to soften it a little. The wife isn't much into words and the like but might be able to convince her with pics like that. Re: How can I make Pantry look better 9Jun 12, 2017 7:58 pm I'm very interested in your kitchen workflow, as this is the bit I haven't quite worked out yet with our place. I have been wondering where to store the crockery and cutlery, as we plan to have the dishwasher in the scullery. In my mind I pictured a dinner party. Cooking happens in the kitchen. Food is from the fridge and scullery, with heavy prep in scullery and light/final prep in the kitchen. Mess gets moved into scullery for cleaning. After dinner, dirty dishes get piled up in the scullery out of the way so our open plan kitchen, dining, lounge area is kept tidy. Later, when guests leave, dishwasher washes and then store crockery and cutlery in the scullery, ready for next time. That was our entire point in having the scullery: to be a big oversize pantry, heavy prep area and storage for appliances, etc, and to transfer any mess from the open plan area to the scullery to keep the "public" area clean. I wonder if that makes sense? Re: How can I make Pantry look better 11Jun 12, 2017 8:03 pm arcadelt Anyway, could you still put a door on the pantry as I suggested? It really needs to be a sliding door. Builder was happy to put in a swing door, but to me it really needs to be sliding otherwise when open it would hit the fridge or block the sink in the pantry. And re the IT hub, another long story. It was meant to be in the garage on the back wall in a 19" rack (its the kind of thing I do for a living). But turns out the garage is the absolute minimum in depth, so much so we have placed bricks on the ground to mark where to stop as we need to be about 4" off the wall for the car to fit. So seeing as the pantry was so big I decided the top part of 600mm cabinet was the place to put it, it fits perfectly. And to be honest it has kind of worked ok too. Except my wife curses it every time she walks past, due to the high cost. But what she doesn't realise is the high "IT" cost in our house was the C-bus lighting system, which only has one small component in this cupboard. The rest of it is distributed all over the place but she doesn't see it that way. And I don't make comment about some of her choices that increased the cost! How can I make Pantry look better 12Jun 12, 2017 8:06 pm AJW But what she doesn't realise is the high "IT" cost in our house was the C-bus lighting system, which only has one small component in this cupboard. Especially when Philips Hue lighting would have been heaps cheaper than a C-Bus installation. Sorry, couldn't resist. How can I make Pantry look better 13Jun 12, 2017 8:09 pm AJW Builder was happy to put in a swing door, but to me it really needs to be sliding otherwise when open it would hit the fridge or block the sink in the pantry. Swing the door outwards. Most doors in pantry cupboard open outwards. They are only open when you are accessing the pantry. Edit: from the kitchen it will look like you just have a small pantry cupboard. Re: How can I make Pantry look better 14Jun 16, 2017 7:05 pm AJW the other side would have interfered with with the gas lines feeding the cooktop Did you get photos of the gas line during your build? They may have routed the line in between the frames and bricks rather than up the wall. I don't see why they would route it up the wall when it's easier to run it between the frame and bricks. If the line does need to run across the house I've seen this typically done by routing it up (again between the frame and bricks) and then have it go through floor joists. If that is the case then perhaps the cavity sliding door is still a possibility? Re: How can I make Pantry look better 15Jun 16, 2017 8:07 pm The cooktop is on an internal wall, the one the door would need to open into. It goes up the cavity into the roof space then across towards the hotwater heater and back to the meter. But that was kind of the point I was making to the builder, there is no shortage of space, so could have had the stud wall which the pipe and power goes through and then put in a second wall for the cavity. It wouldn't have looked silly either because the other side of the kitchen has an extra thick wall too because there is a steel beam in the cavity. Anyway all a bit late now, not going to redo the cupboards to fit a door in. Re: How can I make Pantry look better 16Jun 25, 2017 6:25 pm I was going to suggest blackboard an area for recipes bills shopping list or organisational area great idea too I posted the floorplan on Houzz.com forum and got some really good ideas and advice from people there. Then we reached out to a couple of renovation companies and one… 5 10093 Basically. If the shelves are fixed then they will be screwed in just the same as the rest of the carcass. To re move the screws you need to remove that section of… 3 5202 I visited a relatives house and he went with sink in kitchen and butlers, dishwasher in kitchen and butlers and has crockery spread out between the two areas depending on… 2 44071 |