IMO 23” is too narrow.

There are two features I would suggest you think about:

1. Pullouts - many of our clients love pullouts in the pantry application, whether they be wooden box with a contoured hand pull, or a wire basket with a liner. This would help keep storage of light, loose items easier.

2. Tray storage - We often have some vertical tray storage for any larger service trays/dishes/platters.

Here are two such features in a pantry we recently did:

Have your closet guy look into sawtooth shelf system for adjustable shelving, particularly as how it is currently designed. These are fabulous! [Linking [(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/pantry-build-progress-dsvw-vd~4316965)to our pantry build thread for pics showing the adjustable shelving installed. I say, the more shelves the better for 'zone storage' - asian section, rice section, tea and hot choc section, etc. etc. What I particularly like about ours is the appliance storage at a height where I can walk in and grab/put away and not have to bend down. Good luck - this is not a small walk in pantry, I think it's a great size and use of the space!

Pullot pantries IMO would be a much better use of that space.I rarely design kitchens with walk in pantries I find they are usually wasted space

This is understairs so not really cutting in to anything? I like your idea but would look into pull ours at the bottom would be hard bending to see down there with such a right space. I also think I'd make C and D a little narrower

Patricia Colwell Consulting - I found that pull outs gave me less storage than shelving. I have 54 square feet of storage and can add more by adding more shelves if I wish.

You could always measure the appliances you want to store in there, and see if they will fit. I would also get some adjustable shelves, even if they all can't be adjustable.

A walkway that is less than 2 feet wide is just not functional. I would reduce the deeper shelves on C and D. You will have the E shelves for deeper storage .

I think less than 24” is going to feel really tight, but the easy way to check yourself is to ‘build’ the space with 3d objects - large cardboard boxes are excellent for this, but chairs and sofas and tables can be pressed into use also. Just make sure you’re accurately constructing the feel of the space also - meaning if you use a table to stand in for a wall, drape it with a blanket or sheet to make it look solid. Using stuff that is too airy when you’re talking about solid walls can give you a false sense of space, which defeats the purpose.

Once you’ve built your space, try it out. Bend down like you’re getting something from a shelf or looking for something. Try carrying something the size of what you’d store in the pantry into the space, etc.

Anything at the back of those 6' high shelves will need to be reached with a stool. 23" is already pretty tight; imagine trying to manoeuvre a stool around in there. My prediction is the stuff at the top back won't ever be used, rendering those shelves pointless.

I would go back to the drawing board and measure everything you can reasonably expect will go here.

Then I would think about when and how I would access things. For example I use cookbooks often, so those would be near the door. Small appliances can go on the same shelf as the cookbooks. You already have a tall bank of deep shelves there, perfect for appliances and convenient to access them.

Shelf B could become an 18" deep, 24-30" wide base cabinet with a drawer or two. That would be perfect for storing your extra flour and sugar, anything you buy in bulk. The drawers can pull open in front of the shelf A with no problem. Having a countertop on it will allow you to have a landing zone for all the things you collect on each trip and for setting down groceries to be put away. Open shelves above can hold baking extras in smaller containers like soda, powder, salt, etc.

Shelf C can be 8" deep for storing all your snacky extras and paper goods. See about the possibility of covering over the heat vent. You don't need that space to be heated and you would gain a lot of storage if that shelf extends all the way to wall 7.

Across from shelf C or on wall 7, build in your wine rack.

You can also search "under stair storage" in Houzz. There are some amazing ideas. This one involves re-working the front wall:

I would want all to be adjustable if possible. Too tall is wasted space and really annoying to have it a bottle cap too short.

The shelves will all be adjustable heigh-wise. I just think there are too many shelves shown in the drawing. I need fewer shelves so I can have greater height between shelves. The room and its dimensions already exist, as it was a powder room. I can access all of the space and all of the shelves without hitting my head on any ceiling, because yes, it does slope towards the rear of the room.

The open question is really whether to make shelving columns C and D more narrow (i.e., not as deep from front of shelf to back of shelf). I like the idea of having some 8" deep shelves along that wall for items like cereal boxes and big bags of chips. The cereal boxes could face out on a less deep (4.5") shelf, like on a grocery store shelf, but they'd take up more space that way. Chips I think would just need a deeper shelf, but I guess I could put those on the lower shelves of Column A.

So, what I am hearing is that, even for a "spill over" pantry, 23" is too narrow for the walkway....that it is better to be wider in the walkway, which means sacrificing depth in Columns C and D (Column B can't be deeper than 4.5" b/c doing so would block Column A).

I would not mind the 23in. walkway, but I'm not a large person. I would not like the dedicated wine area because there is so much space wasted. I would put some non-slip shelf lining and lay them next to each other on regular shelves.

We tore out our solid melamine units and replaced with commercial grade adjustable stainless shelving. Love it! It seems like you have a lot more space and light than we did, but dust and crumbs fall to the floor and can be easily swept up. The deep shelves don't end up as black abysses of dusty pasta boxes. There is more light shining down through the shelving. And I'm short, so I can see from looking underneath exactly where my flour is on the upper shelf. I skipped shelves from about 3-1/2 feet up on one section and hang pans from hooks there, with baskets under for kitchen towels and grocery bags and a stool for reaching high items off to the side. My stoneware goes on wooden racks with pegs. Just another perspective.

This isn't my pantry but here's the idea...

We have a narrow, under the stairs pantry but even so, it's wider than yours. And I wouldn't want to go any narrower than it is.

Here's mine:

It's 42" wide with 16" deep shelves at the end and 12" shelves on the left. We added shallow (3" deep) spice racks and hooks for the step-ladder and my aprons on the right. We have a 26" aisle between spice racks and shelving. Door is 27" wide.

Here's the right side:

We also made full use of the door for more storage:

We used Elfa systems. Love their flexibility! You can hire someone to install it for you but it's quite DIY-friendly with the basic tools and skills and reasonably priced for what you get, IMO.

We also made use of the dead space under the stairs just beyond the end of our pantry by adding very deep drawers (28" drawer guides) in a hutch installed in the wall in our dining room. The wall to the right is the shared pantry/DR wall. The dish display is in the stud space in the stairway wall.

I think a combo of shelves in a walk-in pantry and deep drawers in cabinets installed in the wall cavity might make the most of your space. Here's a possibility:

The deep drawers can house your appliances. Here's how I designed my drawers for my appliances in my kitchen:

If you're not able to design custom cabs like this, just make sure your drawers are wide enough to give you enough room to reach in and grab appliances from the sides.

PS If you proceed with your current plan, you may want to consider removing the HVAC vent or at least shutting it completely in winter to avoid overheating pantry items. This is especially important since it sounds like you want to store wine in your pantry. Wine and heat is a bad combo.

OT - Lisa I love the use of your deep drawers! Genius, isn't it?! We did something similar with a dead corner in the pantry and have large pull out drawers which hold blankets and games in another room.

Before face fronts:

I have another dead corner in the kitchen (which could potentially give deep drawers in the garage), which I think about occasionally....

Back to topic!

A large can of tomatoes is 4"; so 4 1/2 could be quite useful. Think of stacking 2 on top of each other as minimum height - which is 9.5-10" then height of shelf (3/4) and then repeat. Yes, you probably do have too many shelves along that wall - but it may just be one row too many. Do you know where the studs are - could these be used for deeper shelves?

I don't like the idea of cereal box storage on the narrow shelves - agree it would feel like a waste of space. They could go on A too.

When I was figuring out our panty, I built it in sketch-up (fairly quick learning curve and free). This was immensely helpful in determining how much room I would have with changes.

I'd suggest starting with the big things you want to store and figuring out where they'd go and what shelf heights you would need. You show what looks like a blender (vitamix?) and mixer but I don't think there's enough space for 3 shelves in E - both of mine are a little less than 18" tall.

We did something similar in our bonus room, old bat.

Fabulous use of otherwise wasted space.