I'm curious - do you really have a lot of canned goods? Have you looked? I will say that my kitchen has a lot fewer canned goods then say, my Mom's kitchen did. If it isnt really a lot of cans, the configuration may be different.

Also if you fill a drawer with cans, doesnt that need to be an unusually sturdy drawer?

You're right - I should have used a different word than canned goods - larder or something? No, I don't keep that many - e.g. a few of each kind of broth (chicken, beef, veggie) a few basic soup recipe bases e.g. cream of..., a can or 2 each of misc. items like corn, stewed tomatoes, saurkraut, artichokes, black olives & a few of tomato paste. I do get a dozen bigger mixed cans of plum tomatoes/tomato puree at the "can-can" sale, but when they are gone, just keep a few of each on hand, and I do get a package of tuna cans at Costco.
So I was also talking about a back-up of each jar/bottled good I keep e.g. green olives, pickles, relish, ketchup, mustard, mayo, vinegar & oils, etc.
I've never had much storage space, and I go to the store twice a week, so I don't need to "hoard" things, I just like to keep enough on hand for the week's dinners, and a "back-up" of staples, things to throw into a spontaneous soup or other recipe, etc.
For the uppers, when I wrote "boxed goods" I also meant things like a few boxes of pasta, rice, etc.
Ok, I also store a jar or 2 of jelly, peanut/sunflower butter, extra sack of flour and sugar, iced tea and lemonade mix, etc.
Right now, I store all the stuff I just mentioned in a dining room cabinet (not that nice) I'll be getting rid of that is 18" deep, 2 1/2' wide, 5 1/2' tall. It stores all that plus table linens in the bottom, but with only 3 std. shelves, things are stacked deep and to the heavens - not convenient - taking something out is like playing Jenga!
Sorry if that was way too much detail, but I guess I store basic stuff the "average" person would store, but without a whole pantry room, not much in bulk. The new set up will definitely have more storage than I do now, and it will be plenty of space for us. So, how to best use those lowers?...

sounds to me like your "canned goods" would be easier to store in the uppers, and your "boxed goods" might be easier to store in the lowers.

I would want canned goods at eye level and would want them upright since they are heavy, some could spill, etc.

I could see boxes of dry goods kept in a drawer, esp since they are light.

Where would you keep cereal boxes. Maybe because I have three young kids, I think cereal box access is number one!

You are correct about the cereal - I have 2 teens - we all have cereal weekday mornings & go through a lot of it. We usually have a few boxes open, and I keep up to around 6 backups depending on what the sales are. Right now the open boxes are stored in a lower cabinet next to the fridg, and the "back-ups" are in that cabinet I spoke of in the DR. We are all tall, so I thought the cereal would be better in the uppers for a change for the most ergonomically convenient access to the one staple we all use everyday (I'm the main cook to reach for the occasional canned good, and I'm a physical therapist, so I spend my work days in much more contorted positions treating patients than I will need to reach for any kitchen item LOL :o)). Seriously, though, my husband has a very bad back, so I'll try to make the family access items the most convenient, whatever that will be. How would you store big boxes of cereal in drawers - think I don't quite get it - seems like it would be a lot of wasted space - or is that what works for you?
So, still not sure if canned goods in uppers and boxed goods in lowers overall may be the way to go, or maybe some kind of mix with cereal in uppers in one section, but otherwise focus uppers on canned/jarred goods? (There's no chance of canned/jar goods spilling because once any of it is opened, it is either used in it's entirety or then goes somewhere else in the kitchen e.g. fridge for condiments and such, "prep area" for oil/vinegar, etc. or "baking" cabs for flour, etc.). The only thing ever in this pantry that would be already open would be those boxes of cereal, a bag of chips or pretzels, maybe a box of crackers or something - that's what's likely to spill if the family doesn't clip them properly.
Thank you SO much for your continued effort helping me think this through..
All you folks are saving my relationships with friends and extended family who would have had me committed by now. My immediate family still needs me too much. To risk life and limb reaching those canned goods in that terrible cabinet to make their supper.

Although it may not seem like it right now, remember that in time you will be experiencing a different family configuration. Planning for multiboxes of cereal in lowers might in time give you a drawer that is not full. Definitely wouldn't plan to store my entire stock of cereal boxes in kitchen drawer--would have a storage place elsewhere for the ones bought in advance.

I think the pull-out stacked storage units would work better for cans than a drawer. The one you want is always at the back or under something else.

Perhaps not useful to the topic of food storage but I can speak to buffet concept--thought I'd say that we lost our dining room sideboard in the remodel and so we put in a long run of lowers to compensate. Area show below serves many purposes: sandwich and toast pullout/buffet service/beverage station/two secondary workstations/microwave station/morale window and plants. No hutch look, just uppers. Anyway, just wanted to go on record as saying that in buffet use, there is a limit to usefulness of deep drawers. There are two deep ones below each shallow drawer. I have china in mine (have decided against using them for linens because I got a better place). The wider the better on drawers up to about a yard wide, but not any deeper than mine! When you stack things in those lowers, you have to unstack to get at the bottom things. Better to add another drawer unless you have a lot of very deep items to store.

I've had a chance to look at two real late 18th century sideboards lately and their two ends have deep drawers originally intended for liquor bottles I think. Both have been adapted for modern use and they've had inserts put in to cut depth in half. Lift out the insert, see what's below.

I will have very few uppers in my kitchen so I have been thinking about this a lot too. Currently my canned goods, tomato sauces and boxed soup stocks are on a lazy susan..it's ok because I don't use them everyday..Still it would be nice to have some of them in an upper. If only because when stuff is stored away in that susan it's almost like it doesn't exsist and I don't have a good sense of what is really in the kitchen.

My cereal will be in a an upper for easy 'teen' access but I don't have as many boxes as you. You could put the opened cereal boxes in uppers and store the extras in a drawer. I think boxes in drawers uses more of the space in a drawer because it fills the drawer from bottom to top - assuming the drawer is deep enough to allow the boxes to stand upright. Things like cracker boxes and chips will probably go in a drawer in my kitchen.

Elba,

I dont keep my cereal in drawers, because I have had pullouts. In my new kitchen they will be in upper cabinets near the breakfast table -- we will see how that works.

I just mentioned cereal because when I went into my pantry today I realized it was the number one thing we stored

I have a free standing pantry cabinet that holds all of our dry goods:

Here is how it is organized:

We have found the roll outs (never had them before) to be extremely helpful for our cans and jars--we can see exactly what we have without having to move stuff around. This can be more of a problem in the upper section with the stationary shelves; I try not to keep it too full but stuff pushed to the way back can easily get lost or forgotten (which is why I also try to keep the larger items like cereals and cracker boxes in this higher section but on the lowest shelf for easy kid access).

Thanks again everybody, and thanks a bunch for the photos as well - love em! My pantry piece was going to have std 12-13" deep uppers and 24" deep lowers. Sounds like if the bigger items, like cereal boxes, chips and such, are in the uppers, they will take up more room front to back, and things will be less likely to "get lost" in the back. Sounds like there is also a limited usefulness to lower drawers, for pantry purposes.

I think roll outs will be the way to go for the lowers for my purposes - maybe a stack of 3? Honeychurch has 2, but I think those lowers are shorter than counter ht. Paulineinmn has 6 (saw her photo under "cherry or white kitchen cabs" today), but the top few look too shallow for my intended pantry type use. Guess the taller items will all go in the uppers, incl. oil & vinegar. If the lowers are like honeychurch's, that shouldn't be too heavy.

fwiw, here's our pantry. It's not exactly what you're looking for, but maybe seeing examples of can storage is helpful. Our roll outs are rated for 100 #. Our cabinet is 36" wide but it's inset so the rollouts boxes are only about 26" wide.

We have drawers in the bottom section--they are great for bagged items and pasta boxes. Our upper shelves are deep and I keep unopened boxes of cereals and crackers behind the opened boxes.

Our canned items are organized so that items in the same category are grouped together...beans, soups, fruits, tomatoes, veggies. Duplicate cans are stacked on top of each other--that way I know what's in the bottom can even if I can't see the label. Cans falling off haven't been a problem. It happens rarely (maybe 6 times over 5 1/2 years), but when it does, retrieving the can isn't a problem. Only perimeter cans have fallen off--so one easy solution would be to not stack the cans around the edges of the box (or only stacking ones that seat well together.)

Honeychurch's cans aren't packed in which makes reading the labels easy. If I had cans on a lower roll out I would probably have to label the tops with a Sharpie so that I could identify them when looking down on them. I would love to get into the habit of dating cans so that I would use the oldest first. Having more incentive to pick up a Sharpie would be a helpful thing for me.

I love having a kitchen with a variety of storage options.

Good luck!

{{!gwi}}

Zelmar, how deep is your pantry? That's sort of the configuration I'm thinking about, with doors over drawers, only I hadn't considered a few pullouts behind the doors. I see it's next to the fridge, so it doesn't look super deep.

Thanks a lot Zelmar, that looks nice! That's a neat combination with shelves, pullout & drawers, and you can see everything. Good point about keeping unopened cereal/cracker boxes behind open ones - I've been giving that some thought - how I will separate the 2. The advantage of have the unopened packages in the next room (even though it's an open floor plan) has been that all 3 other family members are much more likely to just use up what is already open in the kitchen than "make the trip" to the dining room. Short of hiring cereal police :o) was wondering how I'll deliniate opened vs. unopened within the same 6 ft space, cause you just know we'll end up with 8 opened boxes, the lesser favorites will go stale, and I will say "How can it be that we have no cereal when the last time I looked there were 8 boxes!"

Elba, having a separate space for opened and unopened boxes sounds like a good thing. I never have mastered the art of getting others to finish up the opened boxes before opening new ones. But I'm probably the worse offender since I'm very streaky about what I eat.

Vickie, the picture of our pantry cabinet is deceiving. The pantry is in our dining area and the wall steps back there. The cabinet is 24" deep and the fridge is a counterdepth one. Here's the layout, the pantry is on the bottom right.

{{!gwi}}

Honeychurch, I meant to add in the post above that I really love your pantry.

Honeychurch posted a picture of a pantry buffet above. If anyone knows how to get in touch with them please let me know! I want to buy two of those exact pantries and need to know where they were purchased.

My email address is chriswhalencpa@gmail.com. Any help would be appreciated so much.

You can find the info you're seeking in the linked thread, second post, but honeychurch types it timelesskitchendesign.net. I'll try to send you the link through your member page, too.

BTW, I was all excited when I saw some of the names on this thread, until I realized it was over 3yrs old. :[

Here is a link that might be useful: thread from 2011