I've got one on paper for my new kitchen. In posting the layouts over a couple of months, a few here commented on trying to find another arrangement other than a corner panty. To me in my space, it used an awkward corner at the end of the kitchen and gave me much needed pantry footage. I think it was Palimpsest who said they were viewed in his area as a builder grade solution to a corner or something of the sort.

Those that argued against them suggested pantry cabs. Those are expensive compared to an open room-type storage. Plus, you can't normally see all your stuff at once glance opening one door.

I'm very curious to see the rest of the responses. Btw, mine is framed and I'm doing it anyway so no talking me out of mine now either!

I had a choice b/w a corner pantry and pantry cabinets with "wasted" wall space around the corner...I chose a corner pantry and have no regrets. I had never seen a corner pantry until I found GW...SharB's pantry was my inspiration! And believe me, her kitchen and pantry are definitely NOT builder-grade!!!! (The other extreme, if anything!)

Sometimes corner pantries work, sometimes they don't...just like any other element in a kitchen. There's no "one answer" or "one way" to do things.

Until we see your layout, we really cannot comment on whether it "works" in your case or not.

A friend of mine has a walk-in one and I think it's the cleverest thing I've seen since, dunno, sliced bread will do. I don't know what the problem with them is either. This one is so clever - it's walk-in and roomy and hidden all at once. It's like a little miracle bonus room, something for a children's book: the Secret Pantry.

I think, like anything, it matters more how it's designed.

What I remember being said from the thread you cited said something like it doesn't function well if it breaks up the workflow. That's something we've discussed many times for any kind of corner treatment, whether it's a pantry, an appliance garage, or just a big TV. If it means you can't move something along the counter, if this is your prep path, if it gets in the way of moving from the sink to the stove, it's a problem.

In my own version of good kitchen design, a pantry should be outside of the workpath. A corner pantry "over there" should be fine. A corner pantry breaking up your counter into little snippets right in the middle of where you're prepping and cooking, not so much.

I don't actually remember saying anything about corner pantries in that thread.

Counter space has been too scarce in any kitchen I've had, to consider such a thing. In fact, a walk-in pantry of any sort has never been in the cards for me.

When you think about it, walk-ins use a lot of space, since you need nearly 6 square feet or so of floorspace to ''walk in''. 6 x 8 = 48 cubic feet of empty space. That's ''wasted'' volume nearly equivalent to a 3 foot wide, floor to ceiling, pantry cabinet - which is as much pantry cabinet as I would need in the first place. Not going to happen, for me, in the compact confines of a Four Square.

I've been in houses that did have enough room for a walk in pantry, and I do like them. I still think I'd rather have the walk in pantry adjoining the kitchen, rather than taking away counter space. But at some point of kitchen size, you probably have surplus counter space to use.

I have nothing at all against Walk In Pantries. Or a Row of Closets. One of my conceptual in-the-head only kitchens is all enclosed multi door "pantry" with a counter in front of it with cooktop and sink(s) and DW.

But the typical corner pantry where I live, you never see it in a high-end build (not saying these are the perfect kitchen, mind you.) --and you often see it in flips and development houses. It ends up being a drywalled dividing line, sometimes strangely proportioned, always with the same cheap door used in the rest of the house, that has nothing to do with the finishes of the kitchen itself.

So, it is viewed as a way for the builder to save money on cabinets, be able to use shorter pieces of granite, and not have to worry about the extra fabrication of turning the corner with cabinets and countertop.

Add this to the tendency I have seen for that little triangle of floor space to be crammed with everything from extra recycling, big bags of dog food and the vacuum cleaner, it goes from being a walk in to a "reach in" only for former members of Cirque du Soleil.

I *think* it started out as a builder's solution much like the "no soffits" look was originally done to prevent having to fabricate something between level cabinets and a lousy crooked ceiling, or to solve a problem in the first vaulted ceiling kitchen where designers forgot there would be three dimensions that came together at corners somewhere.

I have nothing against them if they are well integrated into the design which is often the case in here. I just have biases against some of the reasons for their existence.

My mother-in-law has a corner, semi-triangular) pantry, with a nice door and a plant shelf above (because the ceilings are very high). It's great, and everyone loves it. Actually, the thing is quite large - bigger than the picture Johnliu posted. If I had the space, I would DEFINITELY have one built... but I don't. Oh well.

liriodendron leave a few more inches than your body's dimensions and you can maneuver in a tiny corner with a tiny slipway opening. This works.

Here is a link that might be useful: MINIscule pantry with a door

I love my corner pantry. I designed the kitchen and house, and it was something that I wanted in my kitchen. It holds a ton of stuff. I don't keep a broom or vacuum in there because I have separate broom/vacuum/mop closet. Each of the back walls is a little over 4 feet. It's outside of the prep area of my kitchen, so I wouldn't use counter space there.

Outside:

A bit messy, but still pretty organized inside:

I did see a lot of homes with etched glass doors that say "pantry" on them, and those I thought were silly. (apologies to those that have or love them). The worst was a pantry with double doors, both etched with "pantry" on them. I didn't want a glass door at all, because I keep my calendar and take out menus on the inside of the pantry door. I also had it wired so that the light comes on when you open the door and switches off when the door is closed.

Funny the differences of opinion. We are putting in one of those etched glass doors that terriks hates for our corner pantry. I LOVE those doors. In fact, I like them so much that even though my door had to be made smaller because of cabinet overgrowth and even though I know have to have one custom made, I am insisting on doing it.

I think my corner pantry makes good sense because it has two doors allowing for entry for groceries from the garage. I'm sure people would see it as a waste of space but we've got a big kitchen and I wanted the two-door access more than I wanted the space.

I'm sorry - I may have confused things. I was referring to the sort of corner pantry that replaces an inside corner of countertop.

The sort of corner pantry that sits elsewhere in a kitchen, where there would otherwise be a full height pantry or a disconnected bit of counter, as shown in the last couple of posts, is a different thing - to me. I like those, if there's room for them.

I agree, the ones shown here are not the kind that bug me so much. These are separate pantries in a pantry-like location.imo.

The question is well-intended, because there are people (like me) who do not like corner pantries, but its a certain Kind of corner pantry that I don't like. So it's kinda like saying "Whats wrong with a red sofa?" There is not an answer without context.

My pantry is also outside the kitchen proper. It's near the garage entrance (great of groceries) but does not take up counterspace. I also now have plenty of counterspace! I understand now what Palimpsest meant.

As to being in the "middle" of the kitchen, I think it works IF, like BeaglesDoItBetter's setup, you have the Cleanup Zone on one side of the pantry and the Prep & Cooking Zones with a sink, trash pullout/can, and refrigerator on the other side of the pantry...as well as plenty of counterspace in all three zones.

OTOH, if it does separate the only sink from the Prep and/or Cooking Zone and you don't have enough work & landing space in each Zone, then it does not make sense to have one in that location.

As to the "Pantry" door...I like them too, BeaglesDoItBetter! I have that type of door 24" wide. I think it adds character to the kitchen and breaks up the "all cabinet doors/drawers & room door" look. In my case, a calendar in that location would (1) be in the way of traffic to/from the pantry, (2) in the way of oven access, and (3) would not be readily accessible to pens/pencils/note paper for writing on the calendar or leaving notes. To each his own, of course!

Great interior pantry setup, btw, Terriks!

Everything, as you can see, depends on location and function! As I said, before, there's no one "right answer" (or even a "perfect kitchen layout" :-) )!

Here's my pantry location...

The interior dimensions are 41" along the left wall (looking at the picture above) by 51" on the "back" wall. Inside, I have a phone jack and two sets of outlets on the right wall. This is for my "Message Center Niche" that's embedded in the right wall. I also have an outlet on the wall shared with the ovens. It holds a ton more than 45" of pantry cabinets would have and, as others have mentioned, I can see everything at one time! Additionally, b/c of the shallow shelves (12" and 15"), nothing gets lost anymore!

Message Center Niche embedded in the right wall of the pantry, practically in front of the garage door, and the first thing you see when you come through the Foyer into the back of the house (where all the "real living" happens!)

buehl, thanks for posting yours- it looks great! I wonder how wide my door is. If it is 24" (or could be that size) then maybe I could get mine from wherever you got yours instead of having to get it custom made (unless you had yours custom made?).

Also, just for clarities sake, that kitchen floor plan in that picture is about 20 renditions ago and the kitchen looks very little like that now. Although we do have the "clean up zone" (I guess) on one side of the pantry and we the stove, sink and fridge on the other. The island is much larger now and also has a dish washer next to that sink, essentially I suppose creating a secondary clean up area. Maybe?

Yes, it's a 24" door. I got it from "Feather Doors". It was a special order from Home Depot. I think it was around $250, but I could be mistaken. We also got it with brushed nickel hardware (hinges & door handle) and I think that might have been an upcharge, included in that $250 above. It was "paint-ready". All the other doors in our house are painted, so we decided to match than rather them match the cabinetry. I seem to recall they had other woods as well, including, I think, cherry.

Thank you beuhl. Ours will be painted too. I will check on the size and see if I can make that work. We need brushed nickel too to match the hinges on our other doors.

I have a walk in "corner" pantry too. Mine is at one end of my long kitchen and it really works great for our flow. Due to the feedback I got on this forum, I ended up putting a counter in there along with my coffee pot and toaster oven. (The butter dish and peanut butter live next to the toaster:) I didn't want my counter space cluttered up by these items.

I agree that a corner pantry is not an effective use of space if it is incorrectly placed so that it acts as a counter divide. However, in kitchens like Beuhl's and Beagles and Terriks, the pantry doesn't block the flow. And also it's a much less expensive storage solution than cabinetry.

In my kitchen, it would have gotten too woody for me had I used that wall space for pure cabinetry. The walk in pantry was a "must" have on my list!

I think the corner pantries that were being disparaged are ones in the center of an L of a kitchen within the sacred triangle. In that precious working area, there's the dogfood and the broom as well.

We have lived with a corner pantry since moving to this house 9 years ago, and it is something I am definitely getting rid of when we re-do the kitchen (hopefully this year!). My pantry was actually a corner shower in the home prior to a remodel (by previous owners) so that gives you an idea of the size. I'm guessing about 41" long on each long wall.

Here's what I don't like about it:

(1) only 1 person can use it at a time. Versus if you have a standing pantry with roll-out shelves multiple people can stand around it. This is a huge issues for us, because it also houses our coffee maker to keep it off the counter. So when someone is making coffee, no one else can get in the pantry to get bread, cereal, etc. And it seems that there is always a back up making lunch, etc. If you have a larger pantry that can accommodate more people, this will not be a problem for you (it looks like doonie's can accomodate more than one person)

(2) we have double doors going into the pantry (each is about 12" wide), and no one ever closes the door, so there is always a wide open view into the pantry. And since our home has an open layout, this means that you can see into the pantry from the living room and dining room too. Yuck. This is totally due to my kids inability to close doors, but I notice that they don't leave cabinet doors open in the same way.

Good luck!

I must admit I had the same question that liriodendron asks.

I'm not sure I can visualize the "bad" corner pantry -- have never seen one, but I don't doubt it exists.

I would love to have the room for a walk-in corner pantry, like terriks, buehl, beaglesdoitbetter, & doonie show. What I have now is a small pantry closet -- the size of a small coat closet. It's the best we could do with the space we have. It was in our kitchen originally & will stay. Maybe down the line, we will replace the closet with a cabinet-grade pantry, with rollouts & handy shelving options. The only reason I can find things in this pantry is because I always organize it so that certain things go in certain areas -- soups & broths go 3rd shelf down, right side, cereals 5th shelf down, right side, etc. -- and I always keep it that way. It would be impossible to find something visually if you didn't know which sector to look in! So, I'm a bit envious of those of you who have room for spacious walk-in corner pantries!

I think corner pantries are wonderful, much like walk-in closets, I just don't have the space for either one in my current home.
When I remodel, I plan to have a little u-shaped pantry (kind of like a little butler's pantry) with a sink and cabinet storage, but I would love to have room for a corner pantry, too :)

OK, I'm very relieved to read your encouraging responses!

First of all, my apologies to anyone I erroneously cited as having condemned CPs in the Other Thread. (It was late, I was taking it all in one huge gulp....)

Thank you all for taking my question so seriously, too. I almost hesitated to ask anything that might risk flinging gas on the embers.

So this is what I've got planned: My new kitchen will be in a rectangular room with the main functional work counters along the long walls. Range wall on exterior wall because of vent fan access and the sink/clean-up zone on the opposite, interior wall. (BTW, don't get worked up over the lack-of-window-over-kitchen-sink thing. For many reasons it is not possible with my other layout/building contraints and in any case, sink windows are not a big attraction to me.) In between these two work counters is a narrow island (w prep sink), not intended for dining/seating, just standing and working at. I have 42" clear aisles between all the counter edges, and that works fine for me. I have two, long, largely independent, isoceles triangles rather than an equilateral or right triangle work zone. In other words food storage lies at the top of my kitchen and the food will, depending on needs, flow down either the sink counter aisle or down the range counter aisle to emerge at the end of the central island, prepped, cooked and plated, ready to be served in the dining room which opens off the bottom of the plan. (Reversed flow on return, of course; with perhaps more emphasis on the clean-up zone triangle at that stage.)

So in short, my c.p. will block nothing as both aisles between the island and main work counters will have free access to fridge (and the adjacent c.p.) in my particular layout.

One short end of the room is largely open (pair of french doors) to the dining room. The other short end houses the fridge and in one corner, the proposed corner pantry. I really prefer a separate, room-style pantry space to the other option of a bank of pull-out pantry cabs. And I found that the geometry of a corner of a corner pantry was better than the geometry of a straight pantry room. (By geometry I mean more running feet of shelving for the same interior floor space because the two adjacent, 90 degree shelf runs can use the same open space.)

I still have an orginal pantry-entrance door and its frame which was taken out and stored in a barn many years ago, so that will solve Palimpsest's builder-grade issue, nicely. The old pantry door is exactly the same as the other mid-19th c doors throughout the house: heavy, old-growth pine, six panels with a morticed lock set and brown-swirly Bennington handles. Underneath more-recent coats of paint is highly stylized pre-Civil War grain painting, a decorative treatment which I happen to loathe, but will protect as I add a smooth paint coating.

As it happens my layout contains no corner cab issues at all since each of my counter runs occupy only a single wall. That's something I worked hard on, but it is less any design skill than the fact that the room has four doors (including one exterior and one double-leaf interior f.d.)and two windows which strongly limited my choices. Still too many doors in my opinion, but considering the room presently has six doors and two windows - all in a roughly 13' X 17' space, I feel I'm making an improvement! (Fewer doors would also significantly impact the overall comfort and warmth of this house which has no central heat. There are only two wood-fueled stoves which rely on very generous open-door air flows to reach all the rooms.)

I am actually hoping the eccentricity of a diagonal wall (the visible face of the c.p.) will add a welcome counterpoint to the otherwise very linear plan. My main regret is that the pantry must be at the intersection of two interior walls, not in an exterior corner. An exterior c.p, would be better from the point of view of using the considerable cool-th of my climate in a tradional pantry-esque way. I will have native bluestone shelves, at least on the lower ones so environmental cooling would work nicely if I can find a way to incorporate it. My stone shelves will be repurposed curbing that I've accumulated from a long life of attending farm auctions. For the present I've concocted a scheme to passively draw in cool exterior air and let it travel through the pantry as it warms; it's the best I've come up with to date. My vision of the pantry is strictly as a larder for food stuffs. I have toyed with other plans that incorporated a still-room function but have decided that simpler plans are better for my space.

In my cellar I have the usual, enormous, 19th-c farmhouse (and still used) root cellars and cold rooms, so my larder will be mostly for dry, bulk and packaged goods storage. I have a niche in a nearby back hall for an upright freezer, and of course, have additional freezers in the cellar where the bulk of our stored-food lives.

A small advantage I have over others' projects is that this room use is new and I can afford the time to build a actual-sized mock-up in situ. As soon as this room is cleared (it's presently a book storage room filled with boxes of books on shelves). I'll get busy and create the c.p. mock-up and bring my photos back for comments. No way I'll be accused of doing a drive-by reveal - you'll be seeing this kitchen so early that you'll see it when it is just cut-up and spray painted refrigerator boxes stapled to 2X4s.

Many thanks for all the comments and to those who have taken the trouble to post pics and plans.

I was quite crestfallen last night because in my mind the c.p. is something really cool that I saw first here on the forum and shamelessly co-opted from the wonderful ones here and on the FKB.

L.

I think the bottom line is that any pantry needs to be planned and designed to fit your storage and organization needs.

I had a corner pantry I hated, but it was not well planned. It was slapped up by a builder and his crew who threw up a few shelves with little thought - and that's about how well it worked. I thought about reworking the interior, but while dreaming about a larger oven and not being sure it would fit, I tinkered with the notion of moving one wall of that pantry and so the whole thing was gone and we were drawing in pantry cabinets. The tall cabinets did add to the cost, but they stay organized and the opened up corner really helps my kitchen feel and work bigger. I am also one who posts about having 36-40" aisles.

Corner pantries are not always bad, but mine was poorly done and it contributed to making the space tighter. I don't miss it, but I also wouldn't say never to having one in another space.

The most recent condemnation of corner pantries came from two specific threads, IIRC, started by posters struggling with virtually identical floor plans in new production builds. One was in Texas, the other I think was in Florida.

Obviously these are currently popular among builders using the same floorplans across the country--not for efficiency or looks, but as a cost-cutting measure that can be marketed to buyers as a "feature." In both threads, the corner pantry eliminated all normal workflow between the sink and range. The builder's plans either had no prep sink in the island, or had some other silliness that made the island unusable for prep. So the corner pantry in this particular plan meant the kitchen offered no place to actually cook. The fact that these posters had identical first-floor layouts in two different states suggests that a lot of new home buyers are facing this issue.

Corner pantries in other layouts are not relevant to this issue.

A walk in pantry can be awesome! But you are talking about the little diamond-shaped corner pantry that's stuck in the corner of a standard L shaped kitchen, yes? Hate those...

Those are popular here in cheaper homes. Builders like them for budget builds because they reduce costs on cabinets and countertop, and avoid the need to place a separate pantry outside the main kitchen L. But they come at the expense of a separate pantry outside the L so you are getting less storage and countertop overall.

If I had a corner pantry, I'd lose the deep countertop corner where I have a few countertop appliances and my big canisters, 2 big upper cupboards, a very deep lower corner cabinet with a lazy Susan and a narrower cupboard beside that. That's a ton of cabinets to lose!

Also, there are ergonomics to consider. A corner pantry has a single door entry with a tiny floor space inside. The floor easily gets blocked with a couple of large items, making it hard to access all of the shelves without leaning awkwardly (if you are a super tidy person who never puts things on the floor, this may not be an issue). And, inside corners are always the least useful and accessible areas of a closet and in a corner pantry you have 3 inside corners on each shelf over a very small expanse of shelving overall: especially tricky on the higher shelves. This is a key reason you never see diamond shaped cupboards anywhere else!

There are many styles of walk in pantries that are excellent (we call the larger ones butler's pantries here). It's the tiny opening and crunched shape that makes the standard corner pantry challenging.

Visually, I think a kitchen with the corner pantry lacks flow, because the kitchen counter and light flow are broken up in two sections.

But sometimes it's just the best option for a limited size kitchen.

What's really cheesy, though, is when they have the glass door that says "Pantry" on it like you are in the Batcave :).

This thread is over 9 years old. I doubt the OP still needs help.

However, to help you, please read the previous posts to understand the context of the question and the comments and to better understand what affects/does not affect the "flow" in a Kitchen.

Oh, and aesthetics are personal. There's a good chance something you like would be considered "cheesy" in other people's eyes.