I would hate to lose that depth...and I can't imagine that drawers inside a 12" cabinet could have enough space inside or provide enough advantage to be worth the expense and room they'd use. Drawers are nice in a 24" depth, because it can be difficult to reach and see to the back, but that wouldn't be the case in a 12" deep cabinet.

How wide is the opening of the current bifold door? Could it be wider to decrease the dead space at the ends?

How is the pantry situated? Is it in full view? Do you have room in front if you might prefer outswinging doors to the bifold style?

Here's my shallow pantry. It's 45 inches wide and 13 inches deep. It has shelves top to bottom and holds an amazing amount of stuff.

IKEA has the kitchen cabs, which have a few different depths.

But in the non-kitchen stuff - the "BILLY" bookcase cabinets are 12" deep, but all the nice office-type cabs they have are 15" deep. I think they are the BESTA series - lots of door colors and styles, including glass, and cab sizes.

I was just there last night. I decided to go with a BILLY bookcase cab with black glass doors. My space is too small for the 15".

If you do Ikea, you can buy the 24" deep boxes and slice approximately 10" off the depth (14" + door thickness). That's what we did. Super easy and very inexpensive.

I'm assuming the dead space is off to the sides? You're not complaining about the depth, right?

By opening that space up to the sides, wallboarding in a simple pair of narrow doors (or however Ikea can configure it) and installing simple but sturdy shelves (just making a closet full of removable wooden shelves) I think you could have the a fantastic pantry/utility closet that would store large amounts of anything you wanted, and give you lots of flexibility for the future. That's a HUGE amount of space!

(I put in a large but very shallow shelf pantry in an odd place during my remodel and it's been great!)

Search on pantries for some well-configured, attractive shelf pantries.

You could keep it plain, if it's in a hallway, or dress it up if it's more central.

Is this an option, or were you hoping to keep it very very cheap? I don't think it would be too too expensive. A weekend job for you or a handy friend.

The advantages of solid shelves have been discussed here before. Imagine a container of honey or flour tips over on a top wire shelf. (Plus I personally am not a fan of wire. I just always think it looks and feels, well, not luxe; it snags everything and it's noisy. Purely opinion. If you have found some that make you feel happy then don't listen to me!)

Good luck!

I have a 36w x 84h x 15d pantry closet with bifold doors. I had cheap shelves that were sagging. I called a closet company and had them recreate the pantry with sturdier, adjustable shelving. I still have the bifold doors and when open they take a little space but I don't find it a bother because the pantry holds mostly small items that are easy to remove.

Thanks for you input, everyone. I found these lovely full-height 'appliance garage' doors intended for medical filing cabinets, but the price was too high for me $1300 and I needed 2.

I love the idea of having the whole thing open at once and not to have doors open deep into my narrow hallway, and they can work with any shelving unit.

Question to Rosie: when shortening the depth of IKEA cabs, is it just a question of cutting off the excess, or does one have to do more?

Gee with all the small businesses going out of business, you'd think you could find those on Craig's List??

that's a lot of money on doors. i wouldn't like having to slide it all the way up every time i wanted something or to see what i have on hand.

my pantry is 4'W x 18" D and floor to ceiling. it has 2 sliding doors on it. they will come off and a double door will go on (not bifold) - 2 doors about 24" each that open out.

you can have shelves cut at HD. they'll do 1 cut of a board free and 25 cents for additional cuts (at least a numer of yrs back when i was putting in shelves). I'm sure they have boards 15" deep (or go with 12" deep; I prefer 12" myself). then just prime and paint the boards and put them in. hopefully there are 1x2's or something along each side of it that the current boards rest on. if not, those aren't difficult to do either.

that'll be a lot cheaper to do than the file cabinet slide up door.