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What would you do if your kitchen didn't have a pantry?

melle_sacto is hot and dry in CA Zone 9/
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago

When we bought our house 14 years ago, it didn't have a pantry and I didn't even realize it would be a problem (actually, as a first-time home buyer I don't think we even realized there wasn't a pantry). The kitchen was small by GW standards (10 x 7), and after living here for a few years we remodeled such that the kitchen doubled in size to about 10 x 14 -- and that remodel included a pantry :-) The remodel meant no more eat-in kitchen space and the "flex" room (I don't think it could really be called a family room or a dining room, more like a large pass-through area from front door to kitchen) became the only dining space. Even so, we believe that compromise was worth the trade-off.

Now we're starting to think about moving, and what I will absolutely miss the most about this house is the lovely, functional kitchen with plenty of storage. In the area I hope to move, the kitchens are generally small again (though a bit more storage than our original kitchen) and many do not have a pantry. I would prefer to buy a home with an original kitchen. Although I am not averse to updated, the issue with updated is often the footprint hasn't changed and I do not like the materials chosen yet the home comes at a price premium.

So, if your kitchen didn't have a pantry, would you steal space from another room again? Would you convert some of the closet storage to a pantry, even though it may not be in the kitchen? Would you add additional cabinetry to an adjacent room and use it as kitchen storage, even were it not in the kitchen?

I'm looking for additional ideas so that when I see these small kitchens maybe I can try to see hidden potential that wouldn't require a complete gut-remodel. That's what we did here, mostly DIY, and if we move we will not be able to afford anything like that for a while.

Comments (58)

  • jcollins84
    8 years ago

    My current home has a pantry in the basement near the garage, which I like because of the cooler temperatures and because the food usually comes in from the garage anyways.. I am curious about whether I will continue using it, as we doubled the square footage of our kitchen, but I never found it an inconvience. I would imagine someone who has difficulty with stairs disliking it, though.. In my new kitchen design I put an easy reach lower corner cabinet which will hold a lot, as well as a block of full counter depth cabinets to the ceiling.

    melle_sacto is hot and dry in CA Zone 9/ thanked jcollins84
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  • melle_sacto is hot and dry in CA Zone 9/
    Original Author
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    Beachem, would you say you had adequate cabinet space for all your kitchen equipment/cutlery etc as well?

    I know our old kitchen didn't. If I recall correctly, we had one set of four drawers that were 8 inches wide, two blind lower corner cabinets, four additional 8 inch wide drawers that were above the corner cabinets, 30 or 36 inch sink cab. Then there was about 36" of upper cabs (to the ceiling, thankfully). We may have had two additional narrow upper cabinets, maybe 15" wide that flanked the hood.

    I remember it being pretty cramped in there, and only one cook at a time for sure.

    Here's a fun pic of the old kitchen! The fridge would have been on the right side, next to the dishwasher.

    OMG that picture is bringing back some frustrating memories! I think time has made the kitchen seem less bad but now I can see it really was that bad.

  • sheloveslayouts
    8 years ago

    I've never had a "pantry" and never wished for one. Perhaps I don't know what I'm missing?

    I look at it purely as cubic square feet of storage regardless of form. So from that perspective, if you compare a 15" deep pantry/high cabinet (I've read here that shallow pantries are preferred) to a 24" deep base cabinet + 15" upper cabinet it's pretty close to the same cubic feet. I think. And with separate bases and wall cabinets you have bonus counter.

    I don't really see an advantage to a pantry, but I know it just depends on individual needs. We don't stockpile dry goods or boxed foods or snacky type things, we just have a lot of canned stuff that gets stored in cupboards and after one experience with pantry moths, flours and pancake mix and the like are now purchased in small quantities and stored in the freezer.

    melle_sacto is hot and dry in CA Zone 9/ thanked sheloveslayouts
  • Nothing Left to Say
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    We haven't ever had a pantry. The kitchen in the first house we owned was 8 x 8 with two doors and a window. Just less stuff was my answer. I had almost no kitchen gadgets, no food processor, etc. I didn't keep a lot of dry goods or canned food around.

    melle_sacto is hot and dry in CA Zone 9/ thanked Nothing Left to Say
  • herbflavor
    8 years ago

    the absolute 1st thing I would do is evaluate each cabinet for after market wire storage add-ons that assist in the usability of the cabinets. You want to assure no Dead Space in the backs of cabinets. And in lockstep with this I would evaluate how I might be living differently as this is a new home-what about the area and your lifestyle-eating out or carryout more? More frequent shopping but for less things and use of readily avail local fresh ingreds?? Or on the other hand, is this more rural, or less access to a variety of food/fresh ingreds so you DO need to stock up more??

    melle_sacto is hot and dry in CA Zone 9/ thanked herbflavor
  • LE
    8 years ago

    Was just about to write this when I saw benjesbride already did: "I look at it purely as cubic square feet of storage regardless of form." I live in a 100 year old bungalow with essentially no pantry, unless you count a skinny cab that barely holds a pasta box. Ok, I guess we could count that. Our new house doesn't have one either.

    We just did the same thing we did with our dishes and pots and pans, figured out how much space it all occupied, and how to store it near the point of use. The baking stuff is in canisters and jars in the baking area. The cereal boxes are in the "breakfast corner" near the toaster. A few cans of tomatoes and tuna are in a lazy susan. The oils and vinegars are in a wall cab next to the vent hood with spices on the door.

    We don't use a lot of processed food, but will stock up at Costco on a few things we buy a lot that isn't perishable. The fizzy water goes in the mechanical room or the long hall closet, etc. (Haven't had trouble finding a place for everything, but the "system" may only make sense to us! Kind of the same thing we do with our dish storage-- then it's a scavenger hunt if we have "helpful" company unload the dishwasher.)

    I know some people don't want to walk to another room to get the backup box of pasta or can of tuna, but I figure it is a lot closer than driving to the store!

    melle_sacto is hot and dry in CA Zone 9/ thanked LE
  • ginny20
    8 years ago

    My kitchen doesn't have a pantry, just some dedicated cupboards, so I shop for groceries three times a week or more. Fortunately, Wegmans is only 2 miles away and a small local grocery store is even closer.

  • mrspete
    8 years ago

    I would not have a kitchen without a pantry! It's as simple as that!

    I'd accept a small kitchen -- I'd even prefer it. Kitchen materials are so expensive, and I'd rather have a small but well-planned kitchen with nice materials ... rather than what I have now: roughly 35' of countertop and nothing in the right place.

    But a pantry is a must: It's not just for dry goods. It's a place to store your large stock pots, your linens, whatever. It's convenient storage because you can see everything at a glance, and simple shelves are cheaper than cabinetry and granite.

    I would accept a house without a pantry ... if it adjacent space that could be stolen.

  • gardenerlorisc_ia
    8 years ago

    Just go shopping more often. Lots of people go every day for what they will eat that night. Not me, I like having a stockpile. Made a closet 4Wx2D x 8H into a huge pantry in the laundry room.

  • funkycamper
    8 years ago

    I'm with MrsPete. It's not just food storage. And not just for prepared foods either. I don't think the pantry needs to be IN the kitchen, just near it.

    Our prior home didn't have a pantry but had a side porch next to the kitchen that we only used when taking out the garbage. Seriously under-used as it just went to a very narrow strip between our house and the neighbor's driveway. So we enclosed it and made it into a pantry. Perfect! Never missed the outside access there.


  • Nothing Left to Say
    8 years ago

    Pots and pans go on potrack. Linens? What linens? I have cloth napkins galore because we use them everyday. They go in a kitchen drawer. I own no placemats and no table cloths.


    It's funny but when people have a pantry on a kitchen plan, I always wonder what the heck they keep in there. This house had a tiny pantry (actually an original cooling cabinet complete with a vent out the roof). I found it next to useless and had it taken out.


    Dh and I were joking that we don't know what we will do with all the cabinet space once this remodel is complete--at about 9 x 14 when finished (with three doors) this will be the biggest working space we have ever had in a kitchen. My fear is that we will fill that cabinet space with stuff we don't use. Ack.


    Maybe there are pantry people and non-pantry people?

  • artemis78
    8 years ago

    We don't have a pantry either (and did remodel--but there was no space to steal in a small house!) We use drawers and cabinets for food storage. I would *love* to have a pantry, though, if we ever decide to add on or move--but the only way to get the space for one in our current house would have been to cut into the already-small closet of the master bedroom, which would have been nuts (although that is what our neighbor with the same house opted to do). There was no graceful way to steal the space from the dining room or the kitchen itself.

  • mushcreek
    8 years ago

    We've never really had a true pantry. In our new house, I'm planning to build a cupboard in the adjacent dining room that will serve as a pantry of sorts. We have so much storage in the kitchen drawers, though, that we may keep some items in there. I built 33 drawers, and with everything moved in, there are 10 drawers left over! We haven't organized and condensed yet, either.

    The cupboard in the DR is going to be purpose-built, with a closable space for the microwave with some adjacent counter space, and storage below and above.

    We have shelves in the basement that will be used for bulky items and seasonal-use. We also will have our antique Hoosier cabinet in the DR, which will be more space. With just two older people, we don't need to store all that much, although I like to have enough on hand for a snow or ice storm.

  • beth09
    8 years ago

    benjesbride said what I was thinking as I read this thread. Neither of my houses had a pantry and I never thought I needed one. However, the second/current house had so few cabinets, I had to have my hubby put three shelves in a broom closet in the kitchen for more food storage. But I actually would have preferred to just have everything in cabs in one area.

  • melle_sacto
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    For those of you without pantries, how many people do you cook for, how often, and do you work full time?

    I cannot fathom going to the grocery store 3+ times/week.

    However, I'm sure that we have too many items in our pantry ;-) I'm going to challenge myself to go through and evaluate how we use the kitchen, especially the pantry, perhaps we have more than we need in there!

    Edit -- also, most homes around here do not have basements. That would definitely be a nice option!

  • beth09
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    melle, for the first 25 years we lived in this home, I had 3 kids, so cooking for 5 people. I worked off and on part time. Cooked 5-6 nights a week. Went to the store once every two weeks (I HATE grocery shopping, though not as much now that it's just us two), except for things like bread, milk, eggs.

    ETA Making a menu out for each night helps with your list, to buy what you need and not what you don't. Then you are not running out all the time for stuff you need.

  • ginny20
    8 years ago

    I cook for three of us almost every night, and breakfasts and lunches as needed. My top-freezer fridge is only 18 cu ft, so I need to go buy fresh meat/fish/veg/fruit pretty often anyway. That's more of a driver than the limited dry food storage. I'm a SAHM, and it often takes only about 30-35 minutes to make a grocery run, sometimes less. But I used to work full time and cook for three, and I never had a pantry. I just crammed as much as I could into the fridge and cupboards.

    Maybe there's a semantic question here, though, too. I do have 3 cupboards dedicated to food storage, a bread drawer, and potato/onion bins in the broom closet. The broom closet also holds cake pans, casserole dishes, cleaning supplies, and spare rolls of wraps, so it partially functions as a pantry. I keep extra paper towels in the basement, also a few cupboards of less-used serving pieces and glassware. The space involved would be comparable to a pantry, it's just less convenient. So maybe the answer to what do you do if you don't have a pantry is "shop more often and climb more stairs."

  • Nothing Left to Say
    8 years ago

    Three houses no pantry. First house two adults both worked full time for the first few years, then two adults one child one adult working. Second house two adults one child one adult working. Third house two adults two children one adult working.


    But the lack of a pantry doesn't change how often I go to the grocery store. Most of my cooking ingredients are fresh things that are stored in the refrigerator. About the only canned food I use is broth. My flour and sugar has always been stored in canisters that sit on the countertop. Rice and nuts are stored in the refrigerator. I do have stores within walking distance and have to walk the dog anyway so a stop at a store to pick up a couple of things fits into my regular life easily. But I could also easily (and have when we lived elsewhere) shop once a week with no need for a pantry for food storage--that just requires that I actually make a list before I go so I don't forget things.

  • oasisowner
    8 years ago

    I have never had a pantry in any of my houses. I shop once a week and am presently cooking for 3 (all meals almost every day). My mother, both grandmothers, and great-grandmother never had pantries. We all had shelves in the basement.

    That is not to say that I would not love to have a pantry, but I have never lived in a house that had room for one.

  • melle_sacto
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    OP here!

    Just to clarify, since the topic of semantics popped up, when I wrote pantry I wasn't even thinking about the closet lined with shelves and a real door -- I completely forgot that's a real pantry!

    My "pantry" is a 24" pantry cabinet (I think it was called a tall cabinet) that has pullout shelves with two drawers on the bottom. That is actually what I had in mind when I started this thread, and I apologize for not being clear. Essentially my "pantry" IS just extra cabinet space and drawer space.

    Feeling a bit sheepish :-/

    Edit -- when I see the small kitchens that remind me of our old kitchen, and think about having to live with so little storage again, that's what made me wonder how other people do it, or what they would do to cope. It sounds like finding the storage hasn't been too big an issue. Maybe I will need to be more creative and open-minded, and look to see if the home has other storage options.

  • mushcreek
    8 years ago

    We are two older adults, working full time, but near retirement. My wife drives right by every major supermarket on her way to/from work, so no extra shopping trips are needed. We tend to cook on weekends, and eat leftovers much of the week. Last Sunday, I smoked a large chicken, which we ate for three nights, then I added some tomatoes, peppers, and onions, and served it over pasta for two more nights, plus two lunches! We probably use our freezer more than most, storing things bought (on sale) and storing leftovers. We keep bread in the freezer because we can't eat it fast enough. The pantry (cupboard) will be mostly canned food, cereals, pasta, rice, etc. Between the freezer and dried goods, we could probably survive a month if we had to.

  • funkycamper
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    Maybe there's a semantic question here, though, too.

    ^^this! Unless there's something I'm missing, that's the only thing that explains how this conversation has devolved into a discussion that seems to be indicating that pro-pantry people fill their pantries with unhealthy, prepared, overly-packaged junk food or whatever some of the anti-pantry folks are indicating. Odd. A pantry is simply a different type of storage. It doesn't have to be full of potato chips, Oreos, Top Ramen, or cans of Spaghetti-O's.

    If I didn't have my pantry cabinets in my laundry room, I would have had to design a kitchen that is a lot less joyful to be in as I would have needed upper cabinets that would have crowded the light and views from my windows. These would lessen my joy in my kitchen. Should I have less joy just so I can store food in cabinets in my kitchen instead of pantry cabinets in the room next door? That's crazy talk!

    Since I work from home, and usually walk/bicycle when I go out, most food buying trips are special trips out. So I do weekly visits to the farmer's market for fresh fruit/veg items, and only visit a real grocery store about twice a month. All of our bulk foods (dried beans, ancient grains, lentils, various types of split peas, shelf-stable rice/soy/coconut/almond milks, and the sauces I buy come from the health food co-op which is a 30-minute drive so I only go there about once every month or two and really stock up. And where do those things go? In my pantry!

    Are you all saying I should drive more and make more special trips, wasting time and gas, just so I don't need a pantry? More crazy talk! I guess I could give up my cardio-kickboxing, yoga and weight-lifting time so I could go to the stores more often. Or tell the dog she doesn't get to go for walks and play on the beach at the nearby bay anymore because I need to spend more time shopping. So less light, windows, and exercise and play time all so I don't need my pantry space. Yeah, that makes sense <eye roll>.

  • melle_sacto
    8 years ago

    I'd take pantry cabs/tall cabs in lieu of more upper cabs. Maybe that's another thing to consider with the small kitchens - could any of the counter space be sacrificed and replaced with floor-to-ceiling cabinetry.

    I find that there are areas of the counter where I prep, and other areas that are drop zones 95% of the time.

  • johnsoro25
    8 years ago

    I took out a 24" full height cabinet pantry with pull out shelves etc. to fit my giant appliances and now have an upper cabinet that extends to the counter. I much prefer being able to see everything as soon as I open the doors, definitely don't miss the space. Plenty of room for family of 4.

    And, yes there is processed food in there. I have 2 kids and I enjoy snacks as much as they do :)

  • yeonassky
    8 years ago

    I'd take drawers below and at counter level pullouts for small appliances etc. Then pull down combos above. The things that end up on drop zones here do so because there is no clear home for them. Or no easy convenient home for them either. So would want storage where that happens.

    I have one tall pantry cupboard in which I store cans, cat food and glass bakeware. It works but I think it would work better if I had shallow shelves on one side for the cans. I don't think I need a large pantry in my kitchen. I'd rather store elsewhere and bring the stuff in when needed. My kitchen is a busy enough place as is, with 3 cooks! :)

  • Melissa Kroger
    8 years ago

    I wish a pantry wasn't important to me, but it is. We currently have two 21" pantry cabinets and they are stuffed full. I knew I wanted to reduce their size in our remodel in order to fit in a wall oven without losing too much counter space. We had a hall pantry closet built, which is just outside the kitchen . It's 3 ft deep and 5ft wide with a 9ft ceiling. It's already packed with dry goods, infrequently used appliances, cans, etc. The plan is to make the kitchen pantry cabs 15" each, giving me a whole foot of extra space. Our youngest is leaving for college in a year, so theoretically we should need less food.


  • gyr_falcon
    8 years ago

    Our current house does not have a pantry, so foodstuff gets stored in the garage. That wouldn't be so bad if the garage was close to the kitchen. However, every forgotten can of whatever requires 180' round trip walk. Ugh!

    Our plan is to put in very shallow cabinetry in the dining room when we remodel the kitchen--12" deep total, due to a doorway. We plan to widen the doorway, but we cannot widen plus move it over, so the pantry cabinets cannot be made deeper. Not ideal, but ok for food storage. And better than running out to the garage all of the time!

    Now if only that kitchen remodel hadn't gotten pushed back about more 5 years...

  • mushcreek
    8 years ago

    All of this discussion made me realize that have a perfect spot to add more storage! The one blank wall in the kitchen is a 6" 'wet' wall. I could put shallow (5-1/2") cupboards in between the studs for shallow storage, such as jars and cans. Hmmm....

  • funkycamper
    8 years ago

    gur_falcon, actually, the best pantry shelves are shallow ones so things don't get lost. Mine range from 11.5" to about 16". The deeper ones are almost too deep. I only put bigger items on them.

  • artemis78
    8 years ago

    We're four people (two small, two big), cook 1-2 meals daily, and both work full-time. We probably go to the grocery store or farmers' market 5-6 times a week, though, which helps enormously in the lack of a pantry. (We also live in a city, which makes a big difference--so we have three grocery stores and farmers' markets three days a week within walking or biking distance.) And we have cabinets that effectively serve in the pantry role, too--one is an old cooler cabinet and then we use what was originally intended to be a pot drawer for food storage now, too. We don't buy much in bulk except grains/flour/etc., which is relatively easy to store compactly. We also don't have Costco or similar big box stores nearby--briefly contemplated joining Costco earlier this year but between the fact that it's a half-hour drive away and the fact that we would have to store everything in the basement (which is not accessible directly from the house), it just didn't seem worth whatever money we might save. I wouldn't say that we're anti-pantry people at all, though--we just don't have the space for one, and therefore plan our shopping and storage accordingly. (This has gotten increasingly challenging as our kids have gotten older, though--but still, if I could add one thing to our small house, it would be laundry, and after that a coat closet, with a pantry only a distant third. It's not a thing I think about except when I visit friends with larger homes who have pantries!)

  • beth09
    8 years ago

    mushcreek, what is a "wet" wall if you don't mind me asking.

  • allison0704
    8 years ago

    Our last house did not have a walk-in pantry, so we installed a large cabinet with roll-out shelves. It and the upper above (mostly dry goods) held all of the food.

    I wanted a walk-in pantry when we built our current home, so I could have a potting bench-type table for the microwave and toaster. It's also great for putting grocery bags down to unload. We've since added a one serving beverage maker.

    We are considering buying another house that has two double door pantries (not deep, like a closet) in the hallway outside the kitchen. The kitchen would be gutted and I will most likely do another unfitted style kitchen. I will either use an armoire we already own or have an English larder cabinet built to store food items in the kitchen itself and use the hallway pantries to store bulk and pet items.

  • funkycamper
    8 years ago

    I love the larder-style cabinets! My sister put one in her kitchen which is too narrow for one. When the doors are open, it blocks the aisle. She has a beautiful dysfunctional kitchen because of it. So plan placement wisely and you will love it forever.

  • Amber
    8 years ago

    I never knew people had a negative association with pantries, I always saw it as more of a country home vs. city home difference. I grew up living over 45 minutes from the nearest grocery store other than Wal Mart and tiny mom and pop places that had questionable meat. My mom always did a lot of canning (deer meat, when we would buy 1/2 cow, tomatoes, etc) and those cans would live in our dirt-floor basement. We're also talking 15 years ago, so this was a lifestyle choice, not requirement. ;) We also only ate out maybe once a month. My mom would have LOVED a pantry, so it is odd to me that so many people have a negative association with it. I mostly cook from scratch or close to, and buy few pre-packaged foods. I think so much of this has more to do with family size and distance to stores. We live close now, but I still prefer to buy in 10 day increments because then I spend less. If I had to drag my kids into the store several times a week I'm almost positive I would lose my mind.

    Anyway, the house we're building has a 9.5'x4' pantry and I plan to utilize every square inch of it. So that tells you my thoughts on a pantry!! I also prefer to have dedicated spaces for things or I feel overwhelmed. Example: Right now we're living in a teeny rental with no storage... But it's okay because pizza hut delivers. ;) ;)

  • mustangs81
    8 years ago

    Much of my time is focused in the kitchen and I would LOVE a real walk-in pantry. Trying to find extra pantry space, I had the wall in the laundry room pushed out into the garage with cabinets installed. I found these 3 at Lowe's for $33 @ and they matched what I had in the laundry room.

    Above is to take overflow from the kitchen pantry which isn't very large. Below is ONE of the two sides of the kitchen pantry.


  • mama goose_gw zn6OH
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    Amber, change the time frame to 45 years ago, and I could have written that first paragraph. My parents built a home with a large storage room off the garage entry. It had shelves for home-canned foods, an under-stairs storage area, and a huge chest freezer, which could hold 1/2 a beef, a deer, and/or a pig. (They would have a large part of each made into ground meat, then mix them for hamburgers and meatballs, so that the gaminess of the deer was disguised from their picky kids.) I hated that chest freezer, because you had to move heavy metal baskets full of frozen meat to get to the packages in the bottom, not to mention the defrosting.

    I have a small-ish upright frost-free freezer, and an extra fridge in the mudroom, as well as the pantry space I mentioned before. Less efficient than a chest-type, but that's a sacrifice I'll make--neither do I like grocery shopping enough to do it 5 times a week.

  • johnsoro25
    8 years ago

    Ok, here's what I do not understand about that armoire- type pantry. 8 jars of jelly? 2 large containers of old bay? 3 large containers of salt? Essentially duplicates and triplicates (if not more) of every product. It looks like are preparing for a well-appointed doomsday. No one lives THAT far from a store anymore. Do they??

  • LE
    8 years ago

    I didn't get the feeling that people were particularly "anti" pantry, I know I'm not even though I don't have one and am not building one. The original question was how to get by without one. I think the "need" for one depends on both the floor plan of the house, the layout of the kitchen, the lifestyle and cooking habits of those who live there, and probably some other factors as well. I don't think anyone really cares how often anyone else goes to the grocery store.

    We had one in one of our kitchen plans, but the final version had the fridge turned 90 degrees and it just got awkward. It wasn't a priority, so the same storage volume shifted elsewhere. I don't mind not having backup items at my fingertips. Biggest danger is forgetting what's in inventory, so maybe seeing it every day would have been helpful!

  • mustangs81
    8 years ago

    Lori, I agree about inventory being a danger.

    Years ago I was at a super market in Italy, as you entered, you got a bar code reader and put it in a holder on the cart. Then scanned as you purchased items. At checkout the clerk downloaded your reader.

    When I got home to the US I went to our IT department at worked and talked to them about the possibility of a program that would allow the homeowner to scan items as you put them in the pantry or refrigerator thus creating an inventory system. He said that it wasn't doable because not enough Americans would support such a product. I sure would.

  • mushcreek
    8 years ago

    beth09- A wet wall is a wall with plumbing in it, and they are generally framed with 6" lumber to have enough room for drain pipes. Thus, the wall I was talking about is thicker than most interior walls.

  • allison0704
    8 years ago

    johnsoro25, the larder is front a cabinet company website. Might be in a showroom or stocked for photo op.

  • beth09
    8 years ago

    mushcreek, I see. Thank you for explaining!

  • johnsoro25
    8 years ago

    Allison0704- I knew that. I wouldn't have made a joke like that if I thought it was really someone's pantry ;) just having a laugh.

  • AnnKH
    8 years ago

    Pre-remodel, we did not have enough storage space. We had a set of metal shelves in the basement, where we stored things purchased in bulk: pop, canned goods, cereal, crackers. We referred to it as the pantry shelves. Extra paper towels were stored in the bathroom linen closet.


    One of the goals of the remodel was to improve storage space in the kitchen, and I definitely succeeded. I have designated space for roasting pans, stock pots, a case of cereal, paper towels. I have a drawer for canisters of sugar, flour, rice, pasta, etc. Other food goes in cabinets - soups and sauces near the stove; bread, peanut butter, snack food near the fridge.

    I do have a "wall of tall", which I guess could be considered pantry space, but some of it is my desk/command center space.


  • melle_sacto
    8 years ago

    Calling it a "wall of tall" seems very appropriate. It's a practical way to add extra storage. I'd go for that, and fewer uppers. Too many uppers feels oppressive to me.

  • allison0704
    8 years ago

    Sorry, I didn't read sarcasm into your post.

    We live in a rural area, and while it's only 10 minutes to the grocery store, I always buy more than one of our regular items. When I bought shampoo and conditioner locally, a cashier asked me if I owned a beauty shop. :D

  • funkycamper
    8 years ago

    I typically only buy one extra of certain kinds of items. Like one extra peanut butter because our house practically can't function without PB, or one extra mustard because DH practically injects it in his veins. If we ran out, there might be a panic attack. However, if those items are on sale, I will buy several of each. Depending on the sale, maybe even 6-8 of 'em. They will definitely get used before they expire. It's nice to have the space for stocking up when I catch a sale.

    I was really happy to have a full pantry when we had a major storm in 2007 that knocked out power in our area for four days in our downtown core, a week in most of the town, and up to two weeks in outlying areas. The highway was flooded and so covered with trees that my entire rural county was totally inaccessible from any direction for about 5 days. Thank goodness for our small generator which kept our freezer from thawing! We cooked on our camping stove in our garage, doors open so we didn't pass out, for a week and were glad of our pantry supply since the grocery stores weren't open for several days and the shelves were immediately cleared out by people who didn't have stashes of food available.

    I have a friend who is coupon crazy. Yeah, she does get the bargains but the time and effort isn't worth it to me and most of the stuff we buy isn't prepared and rarely have coupons. She converted a spare bedroom into a mini grocery store. I bet her family could survive for a good year, maybe two, in a zombie apocalypse. It's too much clutter and effort to me but to each their own, right?


  • funkycamper
    8 years ago

    Mustangs81, there are phone apps that let you scan barcodes to create a grocery shopping list. GroceryIQ is one. I know there are others.

  • jakkom
    8 years ago

    >>...didn't have a pantry?>>

    Well, I wouldn't have any room to store any food, LOL. I cook a lot so I have doubles and even triples of every size cookware I use, plus 25 yrs ago I moved in with six sets of dinnerware and three sets of flatware. I have three separate spice drawers because I cook everything from Indian to Chinese to French and half a dozen other cuisines.

    It was my first (and so far only, thank goodness) opportunity to design a kitchen, so I crammed in all the storage I could. We were handicapped by only having 1 wall of uppers. One half-wall holds the frig and is open to the LR and DR. The other wall has floor-to-ceiling windows to capture a great hillside view:

    I worked with graph paper and managed to get everything behind doors. It was about a week before I realized I had FORGOTTEN to put in any food storage!

    I did have three narrow closets in the DR (a former bedrm) for the upright freezer, the microwave and wine stemware, and the table linens/vacuum/stepladder. But nothing for dried pasta, Asian condiments, dried mushrooms, cans of soup, etc.

    So.....we had fortunately not placed the order for the kitchen cabs yet. Two 18" wide pantry units were hastily added, and placed in-between the DR and kitchen. The top doors hide fixed shelves, the bottom doors hide rollouts. All are height adjustable, heavy-duty.

    I'd never had a pantry before. Now I'm spoiled and can't imagine living w/o one! A walk-in would be nice, but there's only two of us so not really needed.

    Ten years later I had a handyman built us a custom storage unit for our indoor back porch area. It was such a pain carrying the vacuum up and down stairs, I finally broke down and bought a second upright. I don't have any good photos of it, but half is deep enough for the vacuum and BBQ tools, about 12". The other half has shallow, 7" shelves that store dry goods like spray paints (for DH's hobby), DW tablets, Brita filters, vacuum cleaner bags, etc.

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