I am not exactly answering your question, but me, if I am going to have a pull-out-style pantry, I would get the type where the entire thing pulls out. Visible from both sides, and seems to be less wasted space. No separate cabinet doors to open and close. I admit I am not knowledgeable on this, as my kitchen has a closet-style pantry (my house came that way); it just always seemed to me to be more efficient to have the whole thing pull out. Perhaps other more expert people will comment.

The style in the pic below seems more wasted space with each individual drawer, each individual drawer slide, and most of all the doors you have to open and then they’re kinda in the way and not accomplishing anything. Just my $.02.

Aren’t we all different. I hate the style where the whole thing pulls out, you can’t see in because the door is in the way and it’s heavy... in our last house we had a 24” wide 8’ tall pantry. We had pull out drawers up to about 6’. My husband (he who cooks and is only 5’4) found the top couple of drawers not very useful as it was above his sight line. We are doing the same pantries again in our new house but pull outs only up to counter level and open shelves above.

Why not put drawers up high? I can't reach past the first row of cans
on those upper shelves, and always thought pullout drawers would let me
use all that space.

I'm thinking that with shelves, at least you can *see* everything in your upper cabinet, even if you can't reach it. If you have drawers, you can't see what is inside without dragging a step stool/ladder over to the cabinet, climbing up, and peering in.

I have zero practical experience with upper drawers, though, lol, so I may not have any idea what I'm talking about. ;-) I'd eventually like a home with absolutely no uppers at all, because I'm a little over 5' tall and hate step stools/ladders with a passion, so I have already mentally discarded any potential merits modified/alternative uppers may have. (Just so you know my bias, lol.)

Either of these would work I have true pullout pantries and I love them I do not like the ones that have pullouts behind a door.

The narrow ones with open little fences are better to me as well...not so heavy and smaller things wont tip over or fall out

Thanks, everyone! As I said, when we only had 18", the pullout made sense. As we're increasing to 24", and too wide for pullout, wondering what's the best option - pullout drawers, or maybe two 12" total pullout pantries?

We’ve got a 36” wide pantry with 5 rollout drawers behind the doors. I like the ability to pull out a single drawer at a tine, rather than pulling all the shelves at once, and I don’t find it any annoyance at all to open the doors first then pullout a shelf. Obvious ours is a very wide pantry, but even so, I don’t think I’d like pullout pantries — even narrow ones — where your view of each level is partially blocked by the level above it.

I also prefer the doors with pullout drawers. Mine is 30" wide. Most of my pullouts are filled with china, and I doubt the other type could take the weight.

I was able to adjust the height of the pullouts to accommodate my stuff. That is one reason I also prefer doors with pullouts to lower drawers: the height of the pullouts can be adjusted. If you have something 1/2" too tall for a drawer, you're screwed.

When I redid my kitchen. we had a pantry with drawers in the lower part to chest level. It works find for me. i store larger items that I don't need that often and a supply of paper towels.

I have an 18” cabinet next to my fridge and I did 6 shallow drawers, with shelves above. the top drawer is 48” from the floor. The drawers were designed for specific items: towels, hot pads, parchment paper, spices, vitamins, Tupperware. It works well for me and might be my favorite part of the kitchen.

But the shelves above are a little challenging since it’s 24” deep. I can pretty easily access the first shelf and use it all the time. The next shelves hold less-often used items. This is no different than if I had a pullout cabinet though.

Leslie NE, we did exactly that!. Our KD had designed our pantry cab with a fixed top shelf in the middle section of our 18” deep pantry. We had it changed to a shallow lipped (1”?) pullout instead.

I reasoned, I’d have to stand in a step-stool to reach anything in the middle of the shelf towards the back no matter the shelf type. But a pullout makes things much more accessible. Plus, with the pullout, I can reach items along the front and sides without even needing the step stool.

What I see is the amount of produce in the individual doors vs the whole pull out version. Seems obvious which HOLDS more.

I have had both a full pullout pantry and pull out shelves behind cab doors. I absolutely hated the tall pullout unit and imagine two side by side would be even worse.

like others have said above pullout shelves behind doors or drawers until about eye level and then cabs above makes the most sense to me but I guess there are some that don’t mind full pull outs. Have you used full pullouts?

I've never used full pullouts. Honestly, never even opened one in my life.

We currently have a lower cabinet (48" high?) with all roll out drawers behind a door, and then another cabinet above with three shelves. I'm 5'4", so can't reach much behind the first few items on the topmost shelf. I'm not the most organized, but with this layout (18" wide, so only about 13" wide drawers) we run out of room and have to use another closet for food storage too.

Thanks to everyone for your advice. This build is on indefinite hold until we know what's going on in the world, so I don't want to bother our KD or architect to ask their input or advice. We're not even sure if there will be a significant cost savings, because we can't find prices for one of the lines we're looking at. So thanks for helping and giving us lots to think about.

One important element you haven’t mentioned ....is the location of the pantry...that would strongly affect my decision on what would be best...the ones with doors in particular ...as that takes 3 steps to open and you have the open doors to contend with...while you are looking for things...

I have a drawer pullout (behind doors) and a shelf over my fridge. This cabinet is 30" deep so stuff in the back would be inaccessible. I am short and have to pull out a stool anyway. This way I can get to the stuff in the back from the side. The shelf mounted very high above it? I think it has blueprints and a few unused barbecue accessories. This storage isn't for stuff I access regularly. But it holds all my canning supplies.

Next to my fridge cabinet is another 30" deep cabinet 16" wide--a tall pullout pantry and a cabinet above. This cabinet too has a pullout drawer that we use for paper towels and garbage bags. I don't need a stool for this one because it's a little lower. I can grab a bag from the front without opening and I can pull it out to its full-extension glory if I need the paper towels in the rear. The shelf above that has rarely used appliances.

Anyway I am in favor of pullouts on deeeeep uppers, at least for the bottom of them. Perhaps not for every-day stuff, because it's still way up there, but the space is easier to use with them.

The pantry will by at the entrance to the kitchen with a 6'+ open entry that also leads into the great room/dining room space. It's the first cabinet in the kitchen, next to a 42" fridge/freezer. There's an island that starts closer to across from the fridge. Because it's going to be tall, I think I'm leaning towards pullout shelves except for the really highest shelf, because I couldn't reach in and over the edge of a drawer.

Again, thanks to everyone. Sounds like people find what works best for them!

Again ...without any idea about your kitchen layout...at the entry to the kitchen and next to the refrigerator seems like an odd spot for this kind of cabinet..

It's an L-shaped kitchen - view is out the windows over the sink.

Pullouts up high can work - I have these over the fridge:

I also have a 20" deep pantry wall, with some drawers, and shelves above. The upper shelves are great for roasting pans, large mixing bowls, etc. Much deeper than 20" would make shelves less efficient.

The key to what kind of storage would work best for you it a detailed storage plan - determine what you need to store, and where you want to put it. You'll get a far more efficient kitchen if you plan the space for your things, rather than force your things to fit the space.

If you want usable drawers it helps to be able to see into them.