Planning the shelves for my walk-in pantry. What do you think?

13 years ago

The main part of our kitchen has been done for a while now, but my walk-in pantry is still stuck in partly functional limbo-land. I installed shelving brackets on the back wall as a temporary measure so that the space will be usable until the real shelving is built.

DH wants to do the build-out of the pantry himself, and he "promises" to do it this winter. He does beautiful work. I might talk him into letting our occasional carpenter do it instead though. We'll see who gets around to it first. I've been thinking about the shelving for a while now, and I'm really hoping to get feedback from my smart forum friends on my pantry layout plans.

The wood trim around the door, the window and the baseboards inside of the pantry will be made from the chestnut that we salvaged from the old pantry. Depending on how much we have left, shelving will either be chestnut or painted white pine.

The pantry is approximately 5 by 5 with a pocket door. Here it is closed:

And open:

On the left wall of the pantry, I was going to build very shallow floor-to-ceiling shelving for canned goods. I'm planning for the shelves to be 5 inches deep, and 51" long. Five inches will accommodate almost anything in a can or a bottle, only one item deep. I haven't figured out the vertical spacing between shelves yet, but I figure I'll end up with 7 or 8 shelves total.

On the back wall, shelves will be 12" deep. I had initially intended for the shelves to run the full width of the back, but unfortunately my architect didn't plan for HVAC ducting, and running them through the pantry was the least painful option. So I have 12" deep shelves for 34", and a drywalled box for 30". The toaster oven will live on one shelf as in the picture. I think I'll have a few baskets with baking supplies, misc. pastas, etc. I'm also hoping to store all my many years of cooking magazines on a couple of the shelves.

The wall to the right has a window. I bought a small buffet for this wall that fits perfectly, just leaving a 3" gap at the right side to store my stepstool, convenient but out of sight. When planning the kitchen, DH vetoed marble as a countertop, so I plan to get marble cut for the top on my pantry buffet. In this buffet, I plan to keep table cloths, vases, rarely used small appliances, and plastic bags from the grocery (in one of the drawers).

On the upper part of the wall that the pocket door slides into, I was going to hang a bulletin board for all the misc. stuff I want to keep but not necessarily look at.

The only space I haven't planned is the blank upper portion of the back wall (where the HVAC runs). I may just leave that empty to keep the space from looking too claustrophobic. Or maybe I'll hang something decorative, like more of my beloved fish molds.

So what do you think? I'm hoping to make the most of my space and have it be functional, organized, and I hope beautiful. I'm open to any suggestions for how to make this space the best it can be.

Thanks in advance for looking and helping me!!

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Comments (3)

sayde
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
How great to have a pantry! I like the idea of the shallow shelves on the left. If you wanted even more space, you could make the top shelves in the main part of the pantry several inches deeper (so they extend out further) and then extend a shallow portion of each shelf right across in front of the HVAC column. From the front it would just look like these shelves run across the entire pantry. This would make the room look more filled up and may-be crowded, but would also give you some more shallow storage space.

Either way, it is going to look great.
rhome410
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Will the shelves on the left protrude into the doorway? And will that actually make the back shelves 29" wide instead of 34"? Will they make the walkway narrow so that you be in danger of knocking/brushing things off with your elbow as you navigate the space? If so, I'd forego the shallow shelves and use the wall space for hanging the broom, a board for shopping list, or ???

Are those shelves in the back 12" deep now? And working well for you? I like Sayde's suggestion for some of the higher shelves.

I notice in the photo that you have a fairly short shelf space up pretty high. I know we all do things differently, but I find it easier to keep fewer lightweight but larger items up high, rather than a lot of little things to search through. So my shorter height spaces are at eye level, because it seems to be the multiple smaller things that fit there. Just an observation based on my own opinion. No right or wrong way unless it applies to you. :-)
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arlosmom
Original Author
13 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
sayde, that's an interesting thought about deepening and extending a few of the shelves on the back wall. I had also considered a small wall hung cabinet similar to my spice cabinet beside my stove.

rhome, no the shelves wouldn't protrude into the doorway. It's hard to tell from the photos I posted, but 5 inch shelves would just be flush with the left side of the door opening. I might think about some kind of upward lip on the shallow shelves to ensure things don't fall off. And yes, the shallow shelves would make the back shelves 29" (the 5" would still be there, it would just be blind).

The doorway into the pantry is 30" wide, and the buffet on the right is shallower than the doorway by 10", so with my 5" shelves on the left, I'd still have 40" of width in which to navigate. That sounds like plenty to me, but I guess I don't know until I see it.

The back shelves are 12" deep now. They work great for some things like the toaster oven and boxes of cereal, but I'm not crazy about how they work for canned goods when I only have one or two of something. If I have a dozen cans of the same thing, they're great because I know that all the cans front to back are the same thing. I keep wishing for more shelf frontage. I keep all the things I use frequently on the shelves I can reach easily, and extra inventory or ingredients I use less on the high shelves.

The top shelf I've reserved for my vintage enameled fish poacher. Not my most practical purchase ever, but I like seeing it there.

Planning the shelves for my walk-in pantry. What do you think?

Comments (3)

sayde

rhome410

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Planning the shelves for my walk-in pantry. What do you think?

Comments (3)

sayde

rhome410

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arlosmom
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