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heidigo_gw

Pantry/bar area layout - need opinions please!

heidigo
12 years ago

Hello!

I've been lurking on GW for quite awhile now gleaning such good info for our kitchen remodel and I'm hoping you can help me with this decision. We currently have a pantry next to a built in desk area in our kitchen that we will be taking out to have floor to ceiling pantry cabinets and a built in dry bar w/ under counter fridge. Our neighbors did this with their kitchen remodel and we loved it, so we initially went to Lowe's with the dimensions of what our neighbors did. This area is 100" wide and with this layout there are 2 24" wide cabinets with a 36" wide glass front cab in between(will have glass shelves and in cabinet lighting) and then an under counter fridge w/ a 15" cab next to it - see pic below of layout from Lowes(sorry it's SO big - couldn't figure out how to get it smaller!):

We are now working with a local dealer where we took the Lowe's layout and he has tweaked it and suggested some changes to the pantry/bar area that he believes will look better. That would be to change the 24" pantry cabs to 21" pantry cabs, change the middle cab w/ the glass front doors to be 42" (from 36") and then having the under counter fridge centered btwn 2 9" liter pullouts (these would be used to store alcohol,etc. for the bar which were originally going to be stored in the 15" cabinet). This layout is more expensive($740) due to the 9" pullouts(expensive!) and the 42" middle cabinet would have to be custom put together. Below is a sketch of this new layout:

So now my question is which design layout to go with? I'm not worried about reducing the pantry cab size from a storage standpoint since we will have another pantry cab next to the fridge area and will have more than enough storage space.

We are going with dark cherry cabinets - Kraftmaid peppercorn (same color as kitchenaddict's kitchen which was our cab color inspiration!). So I'm wondering with the dark cabs, if the Lowe's layout will be too "heavy" and perhaps the local dealer layout will look better? Our kitchen area is very open with lots of natural light, so I'm not worried about the dark cabinets in general, just about the size of the dark cabs and if it will look "heavy". What do you think? Wouldn't have thought that 3 inches here and 3 inches there would be such an agonizing decision!!

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