Quite often when people come in here planning a kitchen, many of us will advise them to lose the corner pantry and place it elsewhere. Often, those people are wanting those corner pantries removed and are doing their remodel just to relocate and improve their pantry storage.

Most corner pantries break up the good working counter and, because of their shape, don't provide as good of storage as other types of pantries. They also tend to be big, bulky unattractive hulks that detract from the visual aesthetics of the space. They can be an obstacle to efficient work zones. Note I said "most" as some fit in the kitchen better than others. And I think everyone should have a pantry, if at all possible. There are just usually better shapes and locations than the corner to put them.

If you want to share your floor plan for your current kitchen and the rest of the floor it's on, I'm sure many here will be glad to help you design something that gives you both a a pantry with good, accessible storage and a functional, pleasing kitchen layout.

Thank you so much everyone. The comments are very helpful and I really appreciate them!

I just tried to post a new thread with my initial layout and some pictures, but had to delete it. Despite several attempts I just could not get the pictures to attach. I have attached before, so I don't understand. Murphy's Law!

Hi, I thought I would chime in here. I do not have a modern kitchen but rather a transitional one. We just gutted it and out of 4 floor plans choose a plan that replaced a pull out pantry cabinet with bad unusable corners and corner oriented wall ovens with a corner step in pantry. I am soo excited about all the easily accessible space to store counter top appliances as well as staples. The new layout easily tripled my storage and improved my floor plan. The pantry has bi-fold doors and is close to refrig and stove top but does not impede the flow between zones. Just a FWIW on corner pantry.

I wouldn't want a corner pantry thing as pictured - it looks like it would be difficult in a more-than-one cook kitchen. I haven't lived with one, so I could be wrong. We have a 3 x 7 hall pantry that is perfect for us and if we were to build I would do it again without a second thought. Other than what is in the frig, some salt/pepper/oils near the range, and some sugar near the coffee maker, we have no food products "in" our kitchen. It is just perfect to keep food items, all the spices and oils, paper goods, and big things like the pressure cooker and slow cooker and rice maker. This house has a lot of warts, but the pantry isn't one of them. I can't imagine sticking things here and there in closets throughout the house. I always thought I wanted bigger, but this size is great.

@raebutt, do you have any pictures? The corner-oriented wall oven sounds interesting!

I keep trying to post a new thread with pictures but am unable. Very frustrating.

In my current kitchen, the only food I have stored are some oils, vinegars and sugars/flours in click-clack canisters. In the laundry/mud room, I have a closet devoted to canned foods, pasta, etc.

In the new kitchen, this closet will be too far away to be practical. I need some food storage and do not want to use my uppers for this. I have been in PT for over a year for shoulder issues and will use uppers from here on out sparingly. I am open to pantry-style cabinets.

As soon as I can get pictures to post, I will update.

When you are posting, at the bottom of the box are several buttons. If you have the photos stored on your computer, simply click the camera icon (it says photo to the right of it). This will open up your computer's data storage files. Just click through to the folder and then photos you want. Select the photo you want by highlighting it. And then hit the "Open" button. This will open the photo by inserting it into your post. Easy peasy! (if you're on a Mac, it might be a bit different.) I think there is a limit of 4 photos per post.

@Funky, if you could of only heard my swearing. Suddenly, nothing would work for me. My husband used his PC and got them uploaded. I started a new thread for my layout.

I really appreciate all the comments and started thanking everyone, but my PC locked up again so I gave up.

I have been posting for the past month or so and have enjoyed becoming part of this kitchen community.

We do very often see corner pantries in proposed layouts here that are causing functional problems in the layout (breaking up important stretches if counter, crowding elements of the kitchen together unnecessarily, causing pinch points in walkways).

We also very often see people looking to remodel and one of their top priorities is to remove a corner pantry because of the same reasons I just said above (not because it is "dated").

I am sure there exists a way to make great use of a corner pantry, but I haven't ever seen it, and all I do is layouts on GardenWeb. In general, it is extremely rare that a kitchen benefits from having a 45 degree inside corner rather than a 90 degree one. Whether it's an angled corner upper, an angled base, or a corner pantry, they all make the kitchen feel smaller, take up a lot of space, and make storage in that corner less easily used/organized. Every once in a great while, putting the sink or the range in the corner buys you a far longer prep counter between the two, and that is the only reason I've seen where angling a perimeter corner is the best use of that space for that kitchen.

The picture you posted might be the least offensive corner pantry I have ever seen layout-efficiency-wise because of how everything else is arranged, but even in that picture, I think the corner pantry is making that side of the kitchen feel small and tight.

I think everyone agrees that a pantry is well-worth having. But the best type of pantry from an easily-viewed-and-reached-and-organized-with-nothing-getting-lost-in-the-back perspective is either a walk-in pantry/reach-in closet with shallow shelves (around 12" deep shelves) or shallow floor to ceiling cabinets that have shelves that are also around 12" deep.

Everything that doesn't involve shallow shelves (a deeper floor to ceiling cabinet or a corner pantry or a closet with super deep shelves) requires pullouts to be able to organize and view everything, but pullouts by nature can't really fill all of the corners of a corner pantry.

So from a storage perspective, corner pantries can hold a lot, but there are other types if storage that are way easier to view/organize/use.

And from a space perspective, cutting off a corner of your your kitchen definitely makes it feel smaller (I mentioned this above), and very tall, bulky elements make everything feel smaller.

So corner pantries have a lot of not-ideal aspects, and we usually can find a way to meet all your needs without them.

A pantry is great -- even some corner ones. I agree that edenaura's was not in a good flow location, but mobuddy89 does not seem to have that problem - no counters to break up. mom2sulu had a great idea regarding the doors - custom match them to the cabinet doors and paint/stain them the same color.

Depending on YOUR needs, the corner pantry can be great. I loved my 18" deep shelves in my former pantry. I do not stock a couple of this, a couple of that. I buy and can things by the case. My pantry looks like stocked store shelves. You see the face of each item and it is stocked all the way back. I know what I use in 6 months to a year of nearly any item, so when it goes on super sale, I buy that amount. I spend far less on foods than my relatives, and NOTHING gets tossed.

Because I have always had smaller kitchens, I always value the cubic footage of storage in them. That's why I prefer uppers and use diagonals. A wrap around back to a U shaped kitchen is not claustrophobic -- it is efficient. I use diagonals over the pie shaped lazysusan lower. I can reach items in the diagonal just a effectively as any upper. I smile at how many people would rather have you waste space with blind corners or spend big bucks on hardware to pull out items from their blind corners.

Evaluate how you use your kitchen. A pantry is perfect for access to food items, especially if you have shoulder issues. I have leg/hip issues and could not imaging bending down to access a toe kick drawer, or bending over to pull things in and out of a microwave drawer. Place items in your kitchen where you want them.

Your inspiration kitchen looks lovely. Go for it!

If a KD (or anyone for that matter) uses the term "outdated", fire them. Okay, the word is okay if the feature is a washboard... The thing that really matters -- is the feature functional for your intended use. Can you (and/or your KD) find a better, and more useful feature that will better facilitate your intended use than the one you originally select?

If you like the design of something (this is separate, usually, from functionality) let "outdated" go hang out on a handrail and die. Unless you are building/upgrading for some hypothetical future buyer, not for yourself. And I will note: future buyers aren't all going to want the exact same things. Some of us are "quirky". Yep.

PS I also love your dream kitchen.

re: quirky. Thanks to GW, my guy thinks I passed quirky a few drawers and a paper towel holder ago.

Id rather have a well laid out corner pantry than a corner cabinet situation... but I've never lived with one.

We did a side pantry, *costco sized*, 6'x9' with 5 shelves. It is massive and awesome. The door swings in but I could have done a pocket door. The layout is awesome.

I keep a lot of stuff in my pantry: small appliances, canning supplies, reusable grocery bags, 36 pack paper towels, dining linens, BBQ platters, paper plates, large pots, broom and dustpan, etc. I keep minimal food in there because we juse don't eat a ton of dry food. I do can jam, applesauce and tomato sauce but we rarely buy canned food otherwise.

@ILoveRed, your kitchen is lovely and looks very functional!

A hundred years ago most people used a pantry because they did not have upper and lower cabinets like we do now. They had stand alone cupboards and pantries for storage. A great number of people used the pantry for storing canned vegetables and fruits from their gardens. If today you have a huge kitchen with a lot of cabinet storage you might not want or need a pantry. However, many kitchens now, especially in an open floor plan, are not that big and a pantry makes sense.

A great number of people used the pantry for storing canned vegetables and fruits from their gardens.

Change that used to use. Many of us still do that today. :)

You know, I always tended to say "ick" to corner pantries. Then I spent three weeks cooking in a house that had one (and a foolishly large kitchen overall, incidentally) and I just loved and envied it to death. I'd keep it, for sure.

I thought I still had a picture of a corner pantry I thought was really pretty, but I can't find it. If I'm remembering correctly, the kitchen had white cabinetry and the corner pantry door was a light to medium green that looked a bit distressed with leaded glass in the top half. I thought it really made the kitchen.

Agree w/ tib, I would LOVE one. Absolutely regret not redesigning kitchen to get one.

To walk in and see everything - without have to open multiple cabinets to find something. My sister has a real pantry, it is great. Next house, it will be something I look for.

We are in the planning/layout stages as well and have incorporated a large corner pantry in one of our designs. We are considering it as a cost saving measure. Sheetrock and lumber are WAY less expensive than fully built out pantry cabinets.

I cook three meals/day, seven days a week for three growing boys. We store a LOT of food! I was tickled to see this post today as my Hubby and I were having the same discussion. I'm following the feedback closely.

OP In response to your question--My pantry that I call a corner pantry is in the corner of my kitchen where corner oriented wall ovens use to be. So if you look at your kitchen proposal in your new thread, my wall ovens would have been to the left in the corner facing out into the room, then my pantry was where your ovens are in that plan and they shared the corner space to their left with the oven void. It was awful, very little storage and not accessible.I had no other pantry and no space that could be used as a pantry.

So in my remodel the KD gave me a pantry where the wall ovens were and using some space on either side. The wall behind the ovens and now the back wall of the pantry is not a corner really, it is a flat wall. So technically the pantry is in the corner but it has a back wall that ms 54 inches with some corner angles on either side of that. The doorway is 29 inches wide and the distance from door to back wall is 37inches. Plenty of space, easy access, and in the kitchen between the refrig and the wall ovens, out of the floor traffic for cooking.

I love it and that is what matters most. I did not run my floor plan by the GW layout team. I tried but the plans were not clear when I sent the photo in and despite help I was unable to deliver a readable plan. By then we had signed a contract so we let it go. I have seen their critique of other plans and think it is a great idea to get feed back. You never know what wise advise you may get before the project starts.

Good luck on your project!

Rachael

OP Just another point. This pantry has a granite counter top with outlets behind at counter level , so all those appliances I do not want out on my counters but use regularly can live here behind a door but close and useable! The door is a bifold opens with one hand and has seeded glass at the top and raised panel below. The lighting in the pantry serves as ambient lighting if needed. And yes it was way more affordable and easily customized as pointed out in above post vs expensive pull out cabs that don't hold much.

If not a corner pantry, I'd choose this one!

Mine is more like the one above. Also a small upright freezer. And more clutter.

Ahh pantry storage. We all need it, unless you simply don't eat or don't cook and your kitchen is for show.

Fruits, veggies and grains have to be stored somewhere.

The problem comes when you are designing in a box. Every other room in a house is well served by being rectangular except the kitchen. Where do you store food in a square or rectangular room?

Years ago, designers thought they had come up with the solution; the corner pantry.

In certain kitchen layouts it works. The problem is "designers" and builders took it as a catch all solution and overused it so much that we now see backlash against it; even IF it does happen to be the best solution for a particular space.

The biggest contender I've seen pop up to challenge the corner pantry is the pantry pullouts next to the fridge.

Again, a great solution but not a fix all for every kitchen.

My personal favorite (I wish I would have been able to do this) is the hidden pantry.

You essentially make the entire room a bit smaller and "hide" a pantry behind one wall. Like this.

BUT...unless you have an extremely large space to work with, you can't pull this off.

Basically what I'm saying is what others have said. There is no such thing as outdated and what works for one space may not work for another.

The key is coming up with a design that works for YOUR space and cooking style. That might be a corner pantry... and it might not.

Found it. I would do without the black decorative scroll above, but another piece of glass above would look lovely.

We are having a similar debate about pantry storage. I don't know what's "in." I think what works for each kitchen matters most. What are your food and bulk-item storage needs? Also, is there a another quirk of the layout that makes "the pantry" is such a logjam? For us, the sink, dw, cooktop and pantry are all way too close. It's not just the pantry location per se.

You have to look at what works for you, everyone has different tastes and needs for their kitchen space. We are building our retirement home which is smaller, but with only two of us it is a good fit. I have a reach in pantry now and it is never enough room for what I want so I opted for the corner pantry.

I had appliance garages added to each side so that I could have the counter space available when the appliances were not in use. I will attach photos so you can see what I mean.

You can see it's not a large kitchen but with 3 cats and 2 dogs I need the storage space, and I really like to have very little on my countertops.

To me, the pantry is the most wanted item in my new build. Some deeper shelves for larger appliances not used often..room for storage of canned food or canning jars. In my former home the kitchen was small so I had industrial shelves in the basement and kept all my kitchen extras in boxes or bags. Pain.

I'm amused at everyone saying how they hate there's and how that means they're all bad and how we always tell people to get rid of them. Talk about generalizations!

.

The usefulness of a pantry - any pantry - is primarily determined by its location.

• How does it fit in the Kitchen with Kitchen workflow and overall layout

• How accessible/easy to get to is it from the Kitchen's Prep & Cooking Zones

• How accessible is it from the family entrance for bringing in groceries (usually the garage entrance)

Whether it's a corner pantry or the traditional rectangular pantry depends on the space you have available to use and whether it's really a pantry or it's another work area (e.g., when people put in cabinets & counters and/or a MW or similar with the intent of doing some work in the pantry, it's no longer solely a pantry - it has now become a work area).

As to Kitchen Designers - they make far more money on pantry cabinets than they do on built-in pantries - whether they're reach-in, step-in, or walk-in. Many will tell you to go with cabinets b/c of their desire to sell more cabinets, not b/c it's the best thing for you. (Not all are that way, but a significant # are, especially if they're KDs in name only and are really cabinet salespersons.)

.

So, how to make a pantry functional?

• First, it shouldn't be around the corner and/or down a hallway where you have to run all over the place to get to it. If your kitchen isn't big, it could be just around the corner - but then, just around the corner - not several feet down the hall! Ideally, it should open directly into the Kitchen.

• It should be on the periphery so it does not interrupt any work zones or separate the Prep Zone from the Cooking Zone (it's OK to separate the Cleanup Zone from the Prep & Cooking Zones - as long as you have a prep sink in the Prep Zone and your cleanup sink isn't your only sink).

• It should fit with the overall Kitchen workflow whenever possible - but this isn't as crucial as the above two. (Food Storage --> Prep Zone --> Cooking Zone --> Serving or Cleanup Zone)

• It should be near the family entrance where you bring in groceries.

You said you started another thread with your layout - great! I'm sure people have already weighed in on that thread as to the location of the proposed pantry.

BTW...I do have a corner pantry - and I love it! I'd do it again!

1. I didn't have room for a traditionally "straight" (rectangular) pantry
2. It's on the periphery but easily accessible from the Prep & Cooking Zones
3. It's close to the garage door entrance

What it doesn't do is hide itself. Some people want to hide their Kitchen fixtures/appliances and see nothing but a sea of cabinet doors/drawers (it's the growing tread in urban kitchens, especially) - but I like to break up what, to me, is a boring expanse of cabinetry. So, it works for me!

What's best for a pantry? We (at GW) had a discussion about this a couple of years ago and we came up with the following guidelines for best storage:

* Shallower is usually better - 12" seems to be the best for most storage needs.

Things get lost when you have deep shelves. We had 18" deep shelves in our old pantry, and I can attest to that! Not only did they get lost, but we had to shuffle food around when looking for something. 12" will allow you store a box of cereal, 3 or 4 cans deep, most small appliances (we store all our small appliances in our pantry on 12" deep shelves - all but the toaster oven fit on 12" deep shelves - blender, toaster, waffle iron, breadmaker (turned sideways), full-size food processor)

* Size the shelf heights/space b/w shelves to fit your storage needs.

Shelves do not have to be evenly spaced.

* Shelving should either be solid or, if wire, have a firm solid lining of some sort.

With wire shelving, if something spills on one shelf, the spill travels down to shelves and food below. So, wood (w/an easy-clean coating) are best. If you do have wire, then place a firm lining on top of the wire.

Wire also provides an unstable surface - smaller things have to sit "just right" to not fall over. The firm lining will eliminate that.

* Shelves should be adjustable, if possible.

Storage needs change over time, so adjustable shelving will allow you to change your pantry configuration. If they cannot be adjustable, then I advise spacing them so you can fit a medium-size box of cereal. That should be sufficient for the majority of needs.

* If you have narrow but deep pantry, consider pullout shelving of some sort to allow you to use the depth of the pantry.

.

Here's a thread that discusses pantries and has pictures:

Pantry photos/ pics of pantries

I feel your pain - we were originally planning to remodel a kitchen that had a corner pantry and I wanted to keep it. Our general contractor insisted that we take it out because it was dated, and an inefficient use of space.

Well, we ended up doing a tear-down and put a corner pantry in the new kitchen (different general contractor as well). I absolutely love it! There is no way I would trade in my corner pantry for a 90 degree turn, even with all of the super-susans I see posted on GW. I usually don't have multiple cooks in the kitchen at the same time, so don't have an issue with the corner pantry blocking traffic patterns.

In my previous house, the walk-in pantry was in the mudroom right off of the kitchen and that worked very well for us, too.

I have a corner pantry. People want to take them out for more useable space. I get that. But I have a whole lotta room in that pantry. And it's existing. So would cost to rip it out. But so functional!

When kitchen designers use the term "dated", I cringe. To me, anything that expensive and that semi-permanently affixed, needs to be classic and timeless and FUNCTIONAL. I had a walk-in pantry (small, but useful) in my first very small house. It was wonderful to keep the bags of dog food and cat food, the kitchen waste basket when the children were toddlers or so the dog wouldn't get in it, cereal, soup, canned foods, paper towels etc. I'd KILL for one again!!!

They do take up a lot of real estate, but if one has the room, it can be invaluable. Many families with young children do a lot of shopping at stores where one buys in large quantities - perfect to safely store the food instead of in the basement or garage, where mice may imbibe.

A KD should keep you from making mistakes such as a bay window over the sink with windows that open...only one must climb up on the countertop to reach the openers/closers. It's YOUR taste and your money!

So maybe it's a regional thing, but I have never seen a corner pantry in real life or in local real estate photos. I didn't even know they were a thing until I saw them in houzz photos and people's kitchen plans on GW. So I don't know about dated, but I don't care for them aesthetically, because you are throwing a random angle into an otherwise rectangular space and breaking up the kitchen visually. The example pic in the original post doesn't look that bad though, because it's a full size door and doesn't break things up much. (I feel the same way about angled islands - they don't work for me visually)

We are just getting done with total remodel of our kitchen. I would kill for a pantry….straight, corner or upside down! I would go for it. This is your kitchen & you are the one who will be cooking in it not the KD. I am still kicking myself for allowing the KD to talk me out of the one section of lower cabinets that I wanted.

fishcow- what type of pantry are you accustomed to or do they not have them in your region?

I have seen kitchens that have no pantry whatsoever. It is just a room with cabinets and all of the dishes, pots, pans and food are somehow expected to be stored in standard kitchen cabinets. I've never understood that.

In general, in older houses I think there are/were shelves or cupboards in the back porch off the kitchen where the w/d and utility storage is. My grandparents' nice 60s ranch house had the laundry and water heater in the garage so theirs was all pantry and even had a full size freezer. In a big fancy house there might be a walk-in closet off the kitchen with shelves along the walls. If there is a basement there would be storage for extra cans and things down there.

In newer houses either high cabinets with pullouts, often flanking the fridge, or a shallow reach-in closet not in the corner. In a big fancy kitchen perhaps something like mdlin's first picture, or a butlers pantry. Most people I know who have a garage off the kitchen keep overflow canned stuff and pet food, etc. in the garage.

I don't really have any experience with 90's or newer housing developments anywhere I've lived, so maybe there are corner pantries all over California in newer builder stock plans and I don't even know it ;)

Garage pantry? Yikes! Mice. Heat. Cold (below freezing). Ditto back porches or any unconditioned space.

Do you heat and cool your garages? In most parts of the country, the weather is usually too hot in the summer and/or too cold in the winter for pantry storage - in MD, both apply. No one I know has a climate-controlled garage! (Also the reason you should not put a refrigerator or freezer in the garage.)

Oh, and in the fall, mice start looking for a warm(er) place - which usually ends up being garages.

.

Pantry cabinets are more expensive, less efficient, and store less than built-in pantries in the same space. I can maybe see a narrow (12" to 18") pullout (instead of roll out tray shelves) - but only for items that can easily be seen and retrieved.

I can open my corner pantry and scan all the shelves at one time - no opening/closing multiple doors/drawers/roll out tray shelves and no digging around on deep shelves trying to find things. I also store things from the floor to the ceiling - no loss of space due to toekicks, drawer/roll out hardware, limited cabinet height, or crown molding.

.

If someone does not have room for a pantry in or near the Kitchen - then the basement is also an option. Most ranch houses built in the 1960s were rather small, so there was no room for a pantry. My parents have a 1960 ranch home and their pantry is in the basement for that reason. They do use a lazy susan for the most used items (cereal, flour, sugar, etc.), but any food that doesn't fit on the lazy susan is stored in the basement pantry. Space is at a premium and there's no room for food in any other cabinet. (Kitchens were smaller then as well.)

(I also remember both my grandparents' homes having basement pantries - and they were not ranchers.)

Back porch in west coast speak = back hall = that room between the kitchen and the back door. It's not unconditioned space except maybe in some 100+ year old houses. The laundry usually goes there, sometimes the water heater, and pantry and other storage. As I said, my grandparents ranch had all that stuff in the garage so their back porch was all pantry stuff.

(Btw, another of the apparently regional things I've never seen is a 50s/60s ranch style house with a basement...)

People I know who keep food in their attached garage are storing extra stuff, like a case of soda or canned tomatoes from costco. No one keeps their everyday food there. If they have to worry about animals the dog food or whatever could attract them goes in a sealed container.

No one I know has a conditioned garage but in areas of California with any variant of a Mediterranean climate conditioned vs unconditioned is not always a big variation. Not enough to affect most canned food anyway. The towns I grew up in the Bay Area most unremodeled houses built between the 40s and the 70s had no central heating unless it had been retrofitted or the house was big and fancy. (And the only people with air conditioning I knew as a kid lived in a brand new mansion) Insulation is also usually limited unless it was added later. The first house my parents owned we had a gas through wall heater between the living room and hallway. For an 1800 sf house that was about as effective as you might expect but it was pretty standard in my neighborhood.

ok, end massive thread drift ;)

Why in the world would I store my canned food in my mud room/back hall with my extra leaf when I could put them in a pantry? There is absolutely no logic in that. Some people associate pantries with unhealthy eating. Why, I'm not sure. I associate them with,

1) Being prepared. I grew up in Wisconsin, so blizzards and getting snowed in were a concern. I lived in North Carolina and a tornado devastated our neighborhood a month after we moved away. No cars in or out for weeks. I live in Florida now, which has hurricanes. Our area got 26" of rain in 24 hours two springs ago and, had we lived in our current house, we would have been trapped because the bridges both ways washed out and left massive sink holes.

2) Being frugal. Maybe some people like hemmoraging money, but regardless of how much income we have, wasting money by driving to the store every few days is just that. Wasteful. Not only in gas and my time and energy, but I tend to spend more if I'm going more often.

3) Not living in (or having any desire to live in) a city. We can't walk to restaurants. Some of us drive 25 minutes (one-way) to Wal-Mart. No Whole Foods where I grew up for 2-3 hours. We aren't unicorns. We exist. And we think you're every bit as crazy living mere feet from other people as you think we are for driving double digit miles to the nearest store. We're happy where we are with our big walk in pantries, full of canned goods and whatever else we don't want in the hallway.

"His remark was, "this is outdated. We are taking these out, not putting them in.""

But are they useful and do the fit the design? If replacing them with more cabinets would give you more storage, remove it. If not, keep it.EdenAurora ... "we are removing our corner pantry. We hated ours. It was very inefficient in our kitchen." And for a VERY good reason ... it took up what should have been prime counter space next to the stove.

I'll be building floor to ceiling "pantry" shelving in my utility room soon ... we need the storage space for bulk goods. It's "semi-conditioned" space. Never freezes, never gets too hot.

Buehl's post sums up a good pantry well: It's convenient to the family's most-used entrance, it stores food in or very near the kitchen, and it is cheaper than expensive cabinetry.

Looking at the pictures on this thread, it appears to me that some of these corner pantries are more successful than others. It seems to me that the ones that "work" are tucked back and small; whereas, the ones that project into the room a bit look disfunctional.

A hundred years ago most people used a pantry because they did not have upper and lower cabinets like we do now.

No. I come from country farm people, and I can remember visiting elderly relatives on their farms in the late 60s /early 70s. A pantry, even a large one, wasn't nearly enough to store a winter's worth of food.

I particularly remember my great-great aunt's farm (she was born in 1895), probably because it was the farm we visited most often. Yes, she had a large, walk-in pantry in her kitchen. I'd estimate it was 10' deep with shelves on both sides, and inside she had a "sitting shelf" where she could leave bread to rise, etc.

However, her REAL food storage was in a shed outside. She and my uncle had several outbuildings, but this was the only one with a concrete floor and a lock on the door. It was also "dug down" a bit; that is, you had to go down several steps to enter the building. That shed was full of glass mason jars, potatoes, and preserved meat. On really cold nights my great-great uncle'd light two oil lanterns and leave them running all night on the floor inside the shed. The shed had a low ceiling and was well-insulated. He always said that bit of warmth was all that was needed to keep the jars from actually freezing. He also put an oil lamp into the pump house.

Anyway, their food storage bore no resemblance to today's pantries.

Being that it is your $ and your kitchen he has no right to b so emphatic about no pantry. But he needs to show his 21st century storage solutions. Put up or shut up, I say

Buehl said, "I can open my corner pantry and scan all the shelves at one time - no
opening/closing multiple doors/drawers/roll out tray shelves and no
digging around on deep shelves trying to find things. I also store
things from the floor to the ceiling - no loss of space due to toekicks,
drawer/roll out hardware, limited cabinet height, or crown molding."

Agree! I have a corner pantry and this is one of the things I love about it. There was another thread about cooking styles that relates to this. I can take a quick look in the fridge, open the pantry door and take a quick look, and an entire meal plan comes together with what is there. It doesn't have to be a corner pantry, but the idea of a big space that stores lots of stuff - that would never go out of style in my book.

Amber hits the nail on the head -- pantry people are the types that prepare for disaster (or weather), are frugal (buying at sale prices), and may not be able or wish to spend the time to drop into a store for every little thing. If that is not your lifestyle, then you may not need pantry storage. But don't sorry if the unexpected happens.

Ever had an unexpected job loss? My hubby has had 3 in 10 years. Once, compnay closed overnight (took 2 months to get next paycheck). Once, he was let go - with no warning (no unemplyment available-months off) . The third time he had to have emergency eye surgery to keep his commercial license (5 weeks off). I left a job with an abusive supervisor because I know we wouldn't starve if I did (no unemployement available if you quit.) Each time, we had enough food stores to get by without dipping into the savings that would cover rent or mortgage or fuel. A well stocked pantry is our "food insurance."

I do chuckle everytime we have a blizzard warning in MN/ND and people risking the weather to rush to the stores to strip the shelves of convenience/junk foods. The only time in 10 years that I have hit the stores before a "disaster" event was during a major spring flood that was closing all incoming roads for several days. Food trucks couldn't get to the city for 3 days already. All the hospitals and nursing homes had already been evacuated. I purchased apples, cheese sticks and peanut butter because I have food allergies and the relocation centers announced they would not allow cooking or canned goods brought in. Since then, I have an emergency bag ready with a couple days worth of items I can eat if displaced. I store it in the front hall closet to grab and go whenever a flood, windstorm, icestorm, or electrical outage may hit.

I think it's interesting how different parts of the country have an impact on food storage, particularly weather. In our area, it rarely gets below 40 degrees F in the winter or above 75 in the summer. A freezer, extra fridge or pantry in an unheated/cooled space work just fine here.

And I love having them in my garage and unheated portion of the basement as I don't have to lug all the groceries upstairs as most are put away just a few feet from the car. Since I tend to stock up on sales for many of the same reasons Amber and Loonlakelaborcamp listed, this works great for me. By the time I've whittled things down to what goes in the kitchen fridge and pantries in my laundry room (adjacent to kitchen), I don't have all that much to carry. At least not the heavy stuff like lots of cans. The bulk of my home-canned items are down there and brought up a few at a time as needed. Same if I buy something on sale by the case. If i'm in a hurry, I'll just put in my shopping bags to take upstairs items that need refrigerated or I'm using right now and leave the rest at the bottom of the stairs to grab later or DH will bring them up when he gets home. Easy.

When I wrote earlier about not liking corner pantries and that they are often torn out, it was the type that MrsPete wrote about that protrude into the kitchen blocking off an area and ruining the work flow as well as being a visual negative to my eyes. Those that are less obtrusive or aren't splitting work zones too much are fine. I like Buehl's. I'm all for pantries especially the cheaper framed in kind. I've never had actual pantries made of kitchen cabinetry and I really don't see the value. Framed make so much more sense.

My current actual pantry cabinets are original built-ins to the house, 7.5 feet wide and 7 feet tall, 10.5" deep, with some shelves spaced for cans, others for things like cereal or cracker boxes. I have a few of those little wire shelves with legs in places I need more storage for short items. While I have two sets of lower doors to open and two sets of uppers, I never have to open all the doors to find what I need. One section holds all the items related to main and side dishes, another for baking, another for snacks and dog food, another for small appliances and other items I rarely use. I also have labels on the shelves so someone who has never been in my kitchen can easily see what shelf pasta goes on, or the home-canned tuna, etc. If items are grouped and organized, no searching is required.

In my previous home, I had a walk-in pantry and I actually liked it less than my current set-up. I think this was mainly because my family tends to be messy. Even if I tried to group items, even labeling shelves, like I have done in my current pantry, the kids and, especially, DH would find it easier to just toss things in a random empty space. So I'd have dog food next to chocolate chips next to soup. Ugh! Then I did have to do a search. And I can't even tell you how irritated I was when things were just piled on the floor! Because my current set up is organized and doesn't lend itself as well for someone to toss things in without putting them away properly, things stay organized. I love it. I could be blind-folded and still find what I need because I know just where it's at. I think this is an YMMV thing.

I also have a broom closet with space for some extra shelves where I can store bulkier items, like the big bag of paper towels that takes me a year or more to use up. And cleaning supplies like the big jug of Simple Green, floor cleaners, the rag bag, and such. It's nice to have separate space for non-edibles and toxic items.

YMMV?

We are remodeling right now and a corner pantry has always been part of the design. It's situated out of the way but still very accessible. I'm posting a picture below - still very much a work in progress, but you can see the layout. The hallway to the right leads to a bathroom. We're going to try a bifold door with glass panes there to minimize the door swinging into the flow of traffic.