I like having all of my kitchen things in the kitchen, but I think your plan sounds great, so long as you really have enough room in the pantry for everything you want to dislocate from the kitchen. I was shocked at how much box space all of my kitchen things took up when I emptied it for the remodel. I'm concerned that the old porch is only going to hold so much.... Plan carefully.

I think it sounds like a cool plan. :)

Lavender Lass,

I back Plllog up with the concept that I like having all of my working tools in the kitchen...

However.

I am not a "kitchen tool collector". I don't have a blender and a mixer and a coffee maker and an ice machine and, well, the list goes on forever. Some of the best kitchens I've seen were fairly compact one cook kitchens with a large pantry to hold everything that didn't need to be near to hand.

Sometimes the organization can be even better because your storage doesn't have to fall into 24" and 12" deep, can be more easily customized and is usually much, much, did I say much? cheaper than the same amount of cabinetry.

The price difference is one of the reasons I often reintroduce a large pantry into a kitchen if a buget is a real consideration. A DIYer can usually work within the scope of a pantry but not making cabinetry.

Some of the things to consider for a laundry/pantry situation is good venting for humidity, a secure place to store poisons such as laundry detergent away from the food, leaving access to move/replace the washer dryers, landing area/storage for dirty clothes away from food and possibly raising the height of the laundry for ergonomic reasons.

Good luck with your choices!
M.

Plllog- Thanks, I'm hoping it will work out, because I love big pantries...and I really want a kitchen table.

Morgne- That's the same thing I'm finding, too. I don't have a bread machine, a big mixer, pasta machine, etc. I love to bake, but I learned from both my grandmothers and my mom...and none of them had anything but mixing bowls, big spoons and a hand mixer. LOL

I do have a few things and if I ever decide to try canning, I'll need a little more space, but a lot of the serving pieces and specialty items...are just rarely used. I guess most people entertain a lot more than I do :)

Lavender_lass, in my former house, which was an old farmhouse, the kitchen table was in the kitchen, and I LOVED it. If there were any way that would work with my remodel, it would be done, but I have to have a sink, so the table idea wouldn't work. During the remodel, I DID put our table in the middle of the kitchen, and there again, I loved it. It makes a kitchen seem more romantic, cozy, and warm to me.

I think the bigger pantry, with a table in the kitchen sounds perfect. If the only thing keeping you from a table vs island, is storage, then a large pantry would be a great solution.

Good luck, it sounds like your'e making progress in deciding!

Lovender, looks like we're on the same wavelength when it comes to kitchens :-) I too am a big dreamer of a pantry that I would like to have someday in my kitchen.

I think a pantry is really neat. There needs to be a balance whereby you need to have decent storage space in the kitchen itself -- so pantry should not come at the expense of bare minimum kitchen space. But a pantry is neat space where you can leave things unorganized and also store lesser used utensils, gadgets, appliances - not to mention the master storage for things like oil, flour etc.

I guess whether you will find a pantry useful or not totally depends on your style of cooking and how sloppy you are. I am self-admitted slob with a neat freak DH and I think a pantry would be my lifesaver.

I'd love a big pantry. I am doing tall pullout storage instead because of the layout and space constraints, but a walk in pantry would e very nice.
I'd draw up the plan both ways and see how it feels to you.

I have a 5x6 (or so) pantry and wish I had a much larger one. I don't consider myself to have a lot of appliances (I don't have a breadmaker, rice cooker, pressure cooker...but I do have a stand mixer, toaster, slowcooker, lots of pots and pans). You can store a lot more in the pantry...and you can see it all.

I ended up going bigger kitchen, smaller pantry for two reasons. First, my big pantry is like the black hole. Food goes in and it never comes out. It's amazing how much I had to throw away when I packed up the kitchen for the remodel. Second, I decided that somethings currently in my pantry would be far better off in the kitchen proper. It's great to have mac and cheeze and rice on the other side of the kitchen but a pain to have to hike across to get a plastic bin filled with sugar, corn starch, muffin cups, etc. So we made the kitchen bigger to accomodate a huge island. The island will house all of my baking supplies, baking tools, bowls, a small sink and a pull up mixer stand. The counter behind me will have all the other less-used tools and a large stages sink for veggie and meat prep. I can do everything I need to do right there. And our pantry shrunk down to 33" with pullouts. That's plenty for all the prepared foods, and side dishes and small appliances for which the extra steps won't matter. And our island has a huge overhang on two sides to seat 4-5 people in effect giving me that cozy kitchen table feeling I really wanted. Guess we'll see if it really works out as I'd hoped, the cabinets start going in tomorrow :-)

We went for bigger pantry. Still awaiting painting and floors, so no pics yet and I'm only imagining how wonderful it will be.

Our kitchen is not big ... 10x15-ish, maybe. But we like the layout, and it's really open to the other parts of the house. As part of the reno, I wanted to lose some upper cabinets, so we did two things: convert the laundry room to a large pantry, and add bookshelves with doors for storage to the ends of the large island.

Just across from the kitchen was our laundry room, 10x10-ish. We built out a new laundry/sewing room and converted the previous laundry room to a big ol' pantry.

Key to making this work, I think, was opening up the doorway (no door, just a 5' entryway), so it's easily accessible and looks more kitchen-y. Stain, paint, flooring and countertops match the kitchen, so it looks like extended kitchen space, even though it's a few feet away. At least, that's the plan.

There's a full-length (10') closet space on one side wall, ready for elfa shelving and drawers inside. The official "pantry." We initially planned to put cabinets along that wall, but decided instead to close it in with two sets of double doors ... easy to access, but I can close the doors on it. We're long-time elfa owners and swear by the stuff, plus it was less expensive than cabinets and more flexible.

The other side of the room has a spare fridge and freezer and a 4' cabinet with sink. Sort of pantry / prep / storage space in one room.

The other thing I'm really excited about is having lots of light in there ... I hate a dark, cramped pantry!

Hope there's at least one useful thought or idea in there. Wish I could post photos now, but very soon!

I'd like to add one more thing to consider: the proportion. The fact that you asked this question indicates your kitchen area is not defined yet and I assume you'll have an open kitchen. I think it's important to think about the size of your kitchen relative to the space. Make that right first (so that the kitchen doesn't seem tiny or "too heavy"), then plan accordingly. Just my 2 cents.

don't know how big your kitchen will be or how many in the family, but I do think the pantry is a great idea. if you have things you don't use every week - put them in the pantry. make at least one shelf for small appliances/pots/pans. be sure to have more than enough room than needed now for the time you start canning! (I used to do that).

my kitchen is about 9 x 11 but I do have a pantry 4' wide and 24" deep (shelves 18" and I'm adding 2 or 3 at about 9" deep). and I live alone. I do have several small appliances to keep in there - they'll probably take a whole shelf.

i don't cook much these days. I have a 1lb box of sugar (lol!) that I've had for a yr and never opened! I don't keep a lot of dry goods around. flour is in my freezer.

thank goodness I no longer have to cook for a family! I remember the yrs well of cooking for 4 kids! or more...

now I only have 2 skillets, 2 pots and 1 lid - those don't take up a lot of space!

hopefully, in your remodeled porch area you can have a larger pantry than 4 x 24 !

I also plan to have my kitchen table in the kitchen (no island) - my table is from my (former late) MIL's house and I've had that table in most of my kitchens since late 1969!

I love my big pantry. My kitchen is 14 x 14 with a LOT of cabinetry in it, but I also have a 9 x 5 pantry where most of my small appliances, baking dishes, recycling and brooms and vacuum live. It's great to be able to close the door and not really care if it's cluttered up or not. LOL It's also the only proper storage in my old house, so....

I don't think that you can ever have enough pantry space...

Our last kitchen remodel was in an 1834 farm house. Lots of doors and windows in the kitchen, so even though the square footage was good, no matter how we sliced it, I was going to get all the storage I needed.

The laundry room was also sizable and right around the corner. I kept lots of bulk items in there as well as less frequently used stuff such as canning equipment, cookie cutters, etc. I liked this system!

I have no pantry in this new kitchen but seems like I have double the stuff. Still need to get my laundry room more functional to handle the overflow.

From all the posts of yours that I've read, I would keep it simple, get a gorgeous farm table and use that laundry space for overflow!

Here is a link that might be useful: kitchen/laundry pantry

This brings up how unique everyone's kitchen situation is depending on how they cook. In my remodel, I was able to significantly expand the kitchen since we pushed and outside wall further out, but there was only so long and skinny I could go. I ended up with a reasonable sized pantry, albeit oddly shaped. Ideally, I'd like and even bigger pantry but that's just because I like backs ups of back ups (of backups). (The people in the neighborhood know I will probably have what ever last minute item they need for cooking. LOL)

I think your idea is good. Put things in the pantry that are infrequently used by you. Then you will be able to get the center table that you want. Pantry space is less expensive than cabinetry too.

Even with all the space I have, I did end up storing our 2 icecream makers in the big cabinet over the old fridge in our laundry room. So, subjimata has a valid point and that is worth considering in your situation as well.

Since this remodel is for you and your style of cooking, I would do whatever makes the most working sense for you. Think carefully about what use for a typical week of cooking or baking and plan your storage accordingly. Most of us here, that are happy with our layouts, have done so. An efficient kitchen makes a happy cook!

lavender_lass, is there a thread that has your floorplan for the kitchen, porch, etc and your layout? I probably missed it.

I think the key is to try to see what things you would like close by and what can be off-site and then what you can build or customize, or not, most easily to make it work. So actually planning for the real items you expect to use and/or store and comparing it to the spaces available may help you see. Then as you are also doing, you prioritize--if you really want a table and it will be a lot of fun to use, then you may put up with some less convenient storage--everything is a trade-off, but you aim to get your top 10 (or whatever).

For example, my ideal kitchen would always have a mix of food items and cookware in both places (pantry and cabinet) depending on frequency of use and size. I am using several cabinets around the stove area to store staples and freqently used items like oils and vinegar, rice, cornstarch, flour--as do many folks here. In a remodel, I would really like to have a few more kitchen shelves for food items--something like the process of standing in front of the refrigerator with the door open and saying, what can I come up with tonight-- so I would move certain pantry items closer if I could and move certain dishes farther out. To do that effectively I would need more customized kitchen cabinets (including installing organizer-type shelves into stock cabinets) for effective storage of cans and boxes and would plan so that my out-of-the-way storage included convenient storage for certain cooking and serving pieces. Then I might find that the costs or availability lead me to make some compromises.

Although I use some items only a time or two a year, I really am unhappy with basement or garage storage. Inevitably, at the worst time for me on the calendar, I need to locate, examine, and wash out items that may have endured dried-up condensation, bug carcases, ignored food from last usage, or whatever. Sometimes, I simply do without the item because it's a bother to retrieve it for use: turkey roaster, punch bowl, giant coffee maker, buffet trays, apple corer, favorite dishes for evenings on the deck, you get the idea. I use a tremendous variety of tablecloths and fabric napkins and candleholders and vases, but that's partly a result of having them stored so conveniently to the dining table.

My point: although I know it's not an optimal use of space, I still would like these items to remain near to kitchen if at all possible. Kitchen storage or nearby kitchen area storage give a better confidence for using long-stored items. But I also second the idea that items should not remain unexamined in the kitchen or pantry or china cab or linen closet. Resolution: I need to schedule an annual or semi-annual clean-out or wash-up for these spaces. [Write that down, Florantha. Annual cleanup of stored kitchen devices. Yeah.]

Florantha - Excellent point about the basement/garage storage. We are building a new house and my plan is to have a large pantry that will accommodate the large coffee pot, turkey roaster, stock pots, etc. Plus, I will have enclosed cabinetry in the pantry that will hold the many sets of dishes I have collected over the past 30+ years. I have storage all over my house and am ready for it all to be right off the kitchen.