Is anyone using actual drawers for pantry items?
hbrrbh
10 years ago
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Comments (9)
gw_monkeyjac
10 years agoRelated Discussions
Anyone remove their pantry & put cabinets instead?Also 24' pantry
Comments (12)Honestly, I'm confused. How big is your pantry closet? 36" long x 24" deep? Or is it 36" long by 36" deep and you want to narrow the depth to 24" and put a 12" deep cabinet BEHIND it? I cannot picture this at all! Do you have cabinets next to the fridge right now or just a deep pantry closet? OK, well, you only have a coat closet if you completely get rid of the pantry closet, therefore I say that you must have at a minimum a 24"x24" utility / broom closet. As far as an actual "pantry" goes, it's hard to say without a floorplan. A well designed pantry is invaluable, a poorly designed pantry is a major waste of space. If you have a small kitchen and lack counterspace then you may be better off without a pantry, but usually that would be replacing it with 24" deep base cabs and 12" deep uppers. You still need storage space - the equivalent of what your pantry held at least. A "pantry" stores food. A "closet" stores non-food items such as cleaning supplies and, well, yes, dog food too. A pantry can be replaced with the equivalent in cabinets (drawer base - regular base cabs are just as bad as a poorly designed pantry). Food and non-food items should have separate storage spaces - otherwise you end up with a mess as you apparently have right now (as do I - my pantry is poorly designed and at the opposite end of the dining room diagonally across from the kitchen - I don't know what the builder was thinking). Note that a 24" deep pantry only works if it is a pull-out, otherwise 12-15" shelves are the way to go....See MorePeeing in the pantry? Anyone else
Comments (43)Not to belabor the point, but I have a reputation of beating dead horses. If any storage is in a bathroom it should be behind doors. On exposed surfaces, do not keep anything that will go INSIDE a human (i.e toothbrushes, drinking cups, mouthwash bottles, etc.). IMHO, a cupboard in the loo should just be used for exterior-to-humans items such as towels, cleaning supplies, toiletries in closed canisters, etc. BEHIND doors. If a canned good is on open shelves near a toilet, be sure to WASH it well before opening. Or pour boiling water over it. Or douse it in alcohol. Or put it in an autoclave. Google any combo of words such as 'toilet flush bacteria' and you'll see why. Even with the lid down, water vapor escapes. Or 'erupts,' according to some MDs: 'Polluted water vapor erupts out of the flushing toilet bowl and it can take several hours for these particles to finally settle -- not to mention where.' (This is a good argument for any of the male persuasion who don't lower the lid.) Not that I'm a bacteriaphobe or anything! ;) Here is a link that might be useful: Erupting toilet flushing bacteria yuck!...See MoreAnyone use Elfa for a pantry?
Comments (11)What do you want to store besides food? Will you have any small appliances in there, the trash bags, shopping bags, a broom and dustpan or Swiffer? Leave space for those. And maybe some solid shelving, a little deeper, maybe pullout, as a work surface for measuring or pouring things into decanters or serving pieces and to hold appliances. I agree you can wrap the space in elfa (I'm an elfa queen lol!). In my last pantry, only about 22" wide, I had a deeper shelf on the bottom, a couple of 12" shelves above that, and 8" shelves the rest of the way up. That way heavy stuff was low where I could get it easily, and up above things didn't hide behind others. On the side I had just enough room for a wall rack of baskets that each held a single row of cans. For you, I think I'd do a bank or two of drawers on the left to hold bags, napkins, and all those little niggly things like cookie cutters, toothpicks, skewers, candles, and so on, with a countertop on top of them, shallow shelves above, and shelves all the rest of the way around. Im surprised Container Store came up with something so unoriginal. The last few times I've gone into the store, I notice they are relying on standard layouts more, and less creativity, but maybe if y go in to your store in the morning when they aren't too busy, you can work together to get a better layout....See MoreIdeas? Open shelf pantry storage for small food items: stumped!
Comments (20)This: "It may not be the most attractive pantry out there, but it’s functional. It doesn’t need to look like a magazine photo." So smart! People get hung up on the Pinterest-worthy "organization" pictures, but more of those aren't -really- organized; they're pretty-fied. I'm so glad fo ryou, that you're able to focus on the functionality. Lazy_gardens highlighted one of my own main themes: too much space between shelves. Brilliant solution, your shoe shelves! And this: "We became empty-nesters and I had not kept pace with the decreasing demand. My daughter was a late-night impulse baker and I’d kept things on hand for her." I think this happens to us all. That we have one paradigm, and then when life changes for us, we are slow to update. You've gotten a big head start on redefining your storage. I'm in admiration of this: "The only place where I retained the stacking bins was on the shallow wall-mounted shelves. They were already working for what I used them for" Good for you, for recognizing something that's working, and not tossing it out just because....See Moregwlolo
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