25 Beautiful Butler’s Pantries
Get design ideas and inspiration from kitchen storage, prep and cleanup spaces that are as practical as they are pretty
Silver service and domestic staff are rare these days, but the demand for, and utility of, butler’s pantries — secondary kitchen spaces used for storage, food prep and hiding messes — remains high. If you’re planning a kitchen remodel and have the square footage (and budget), let these projects recently uploaded to Houzz inspire your own butler’s pantry. The rest of us can dream — and cherry-pick design and organizing ideas to apply to our kitchens, whatever their size.
2. In modern parlance, “butler’s pantry” usually refers to a storage pantry that also has a work surface for food prep and plating, small appliances and often a small sink, as in the previous photo. When it has all of the accoutrements and functionality of a small kitchen, designers sometimes call it a back kitchen, prep kitchen or scullery. For example, Pike Properties refers to this Charlotte, North Carolina, room, which has a full second sink and major appliances like a dishwasher, as a “scullery turned prep kitchen.”
The distinctions are blurry these days. For simplicity’s sake, we’re using “butler’s pantry” to encompass all of those terms here.
The distinctions are blurry these days. For simplicity’s sake, we’re using “butler’s pantry” to encompass all of those terms here.
3. This newly built beauty in a Minnesota home by Kate Roos Design has a traditional butler’s pantry layout. It’s situated as a pass-through between the kitchen and dining room. It serves as a secondary food prep area with a bar sink and freezer drawers and glass-doored cabinetry for displaying china. There’s a separate walk-in pantry for storing food, additional dishes and small appliances.
Shop for pantry and cabinet organizers on Houzz
Shop for pantry and cabinet organizers on Houzz
4. Gibson Gimpel Interior Design created a hidden entrance to this spacious butler’s pantry in Fort Worth, Texas, which shares the same boldly patterned marble floor as the kitchen. It has a full-size fridge, a coffee area, open and closed storage for both food and dishes and plenty of well-lit counter space for plating and prepping.
25 Hidden Doors and Secret Spaces
25 Hidden Doors and Secret Spaces
5. Whittney Parkinson Design salvaged original stained-glass doors from elsewhere in this 1920s Indiana Tudor-style home and had them refitted to the cabinets in the small but elegant butler’s pantry. The moody dark gray paint matches the island in the two-tone kitchen.
15 Smart Ideas From Beautifully Organized Pantries
15 Smart Ideas From Beautifully Organized Pantries
6. Butler’s pantries weren’t always the multifunctional workhorses they tend to be today. In the past they most often stored valuable dinnerware, not food, and were the domain of the butler — hence their name — who was responsible for plating meals and pouring alcoholic drinks en route to the dining table.
This refurbished butler’s pantry in an 1873 San Francisco Victorian updated by Eileen Gordon Design leans more toward the latter. Its marble countertops, leaded glass window and display cabinet for fine crystal have a formality and elegance that befit the room’s eponym. You can almost picture a tuxedoed butler rinsing Waterford goblets in the sink.
This refurbished butler’s pantry in an 1873 San Francisco Victorian updated by Eileen Gordon Design leans more toward the latter. Its marble countertops, leaded glass window and display cabinet for fine crystal have a formality and elegance that befit the room’s eponym. You can almost picture a tuxedoed butler rinsing Waterford goblets in the sink.
7. A darling cafe curtain and cabinets with a soft mauve undertone give this Newport Beach, California, butler’s pantry by Laura Brophy Interiors a vintage feel.
Walk-In Pantries vs. Cabinet Pantries
Walk-In Pantries vs. Cabinet Pantries
8. In this eastern Texas home, architect Paul N. Brow and Gunn Construction & Building created this walk-through pantry adjacent to a traditional butler’s pantry that connects to the dining room. The latter has a sink, additional storage, appliances and a work surface.
Shop for food containers and storage
Shop for food containers and storage
Photo by Charlotte Safavi
9. Designed by Marie Jo Parisi of Jennifer Gilmer Kitchen & Bath, this Washington, D.C., butler’s pantry, which is set up as a coffee station, is open to the kitchen with an archway to delineate the spaces. We’re guessing the doggie treats are in one of the cabinets.
9. Designed by Marie Jo Parisi of Jennifer Gilmer Kitchen & Bath, this Washington, D.C., butler’s pantry, which is set up as a coffee station, is open to the kitchen with an archway to delineate the spaces. We’re guessing the doggie treats are in one of the cabinets.
10. Morrison Interiors designed this nesting-doll-like storage pantry-within-a-butler’s pantry/back kitchen in a Newport Beach, California, home.
If this secondary space is bigger and more nicely appointed than your primary kitchen, just wait until you see the main event.
If this secondary space is bigger and more nicely appointed than your primary kitchen, just wait until you see the main event.
11. Mark D. Williams Custom Homes and David Charlez Designs created this jewel of an emerald green butler’s pantry in a Minnesota home. The brass shelf rails are a pretty and practical addition to the open shelving.
Read more stories about kitchen pantries
Read more stories about kitchen pantries
12. Tammara Stroud Design restored this charming butler’s pantry in a 1909 home in Seattle with period details such as a skirted sink, which once seemed a thing of the past but is now enjoying a resurgence, much like butler’s pantries themselves.
Photo by Truss Media
13. The concept of a butler’s pantry may be old-fashioned, but the room itself needn’t be. This modern Utah butler’s pantry has clean lines, light wood and stainless steel finishes, and open storage that includes pullouts and spots for cutting boards and cookie sheets.
13. The concept of a butler’s pantry may be old-fashioned, but the room itself needn’t be. This modern Utah butler’s pantry has clean lines, light wood and stainless steel finishes, and open storage that includes pullouts and spots for cutting boards and cookie sheets.
Huffard House Interior Design
14. In a coastal Maine home, this butler’s pantry has cabinetry that extends to the ceiling and a beautiful dark gray countersplash — a countertop that extends up the wall to form a backsplash — that looks like natural soapstone. The integrated drainboard and articulating faucet are subtle, practical touches that elevate the simple design and hark back to sculleries of yore, which were used primarily for washing dishes and other dirty work.
14. In a coastal Maine home, this butler’s pantry has cabinetry that extends to the ceiling and a beautiful dark gray countersplash — a countertop that extends up the wall to form a backsplash — that looks like natural soapstone. The integrated drainboard and articulating faucet are subtle, practical touches that elevate the simple design and hark back to sculleries of yore, which were used primarily for washing dishes and other dirty work.
15. Another secret door — this one disguised by the wine shelf seen at right — conceals a butler’s pantry in a Vancouver project by Jenny Martin Design. Wire baskets help to keep pantry items organized on the open shelving.
Controlling temperature, sunlight, airflow and humidity in your pantry is critical to keeping food fresh. A kitchen designer can help ensure the right systems are in place.
Controlling temperature, sunlight, airflow and humidity in your pantry is critical to keeping food fresh. A kitchen designer can help ensure the right systems are in place.
16. This striking butler’s pantry by Michigan-based Deidre Interiors is in a condo in a 1930s building. The design you see on the back wall is actually the original painting on the exterior brick of the adjacent building, which dates to the early 20th century. Metal-framed glass lets the cool art and industrial design shine even with the doors closed.
17. In Missouri, a well-equipped butler’s pantry with built-in appliances and plenty of cabinets by Detailed Designs by Denise allows the main kitchen to forgo most uppers in favor of huge windows and a counter-to-ceiling backsplash.
Find more kitchen storage ideas
Find more kitchen storage ideas
18. This butler’s pantry connecting the kitchen and dining room in a South Minneapolis home by Jkath Design Build + Reinvent has a beautiful traditional-style built-in cabinet that resembles a freestanding piece of furniture, at left. Flush hardware and bypass doors instead of swing-out cabinet doors on the upper portion help to keep the narrow passageway clear.
19. In an Illinois house by Timber Trails Development, this butler’s pantry has a full-size sink, fridge and dishwasher, plus an eye-catching light fixture above. The deep blue cabinets correspond with the blue backsplash behind the range in the main kitchen.
20. With its soft white, light blue and pale wood palette, this lakeside farmhouse in North Carolina by Kingswood Custom Homes is the personification of pretty. When this butler’s pantry’s pocket doors are open, the view from the kitchen is of a coffee niche with its own wire mesh pocket doors.
21. Similar to the previous kitchen, this Toronto-area pantry by Chervin Kitchen & Bath has a coffee station tucked behind pocket doors. But instead of also having a pocket door that can close off the whole space, this one is designed to be open to the main kitchen.
22. When a butler’s pantry connects or is open to other rooms, form is as important as function. In the case of this Cincinnati butler’s pantry by Reusch Interior Design, passers-through must want to pause and admire the playful tile backsplash, whimsical wallpaper and special brass details, which include a bistro shelf and wire mesh grilles on upper cabinets.
23. This Versailles, Kentucky, butler’s pantry by Anderson & Rodgers Construction, which has a toaster, microwave and two coffee/espresso machines, illustrates how one of these ancillary kitchen spaces can help keep your main kitchen free of countertop clutter.
24. In Kansas City, McCroskey Interiors outfitted this butler’s pantry with a harlequin tile floor, perfectly organized open shelving and glass-front cabinets. Trust us: You’ll want to click this photo and peruse the rest of the kitchen to see some other creative and beautiful storage ideas.
25. If you’d love a pantry like one of those pictured above but don’t have room for it in your current floor plan, consider stealing space from an adjacent room, as Kimberlee Marie Interiors did in this Snohomish, Washington, home. A rarely used formal dining room was closed off to create this butler’s pantry, which is accessed via a hidden door in the kitchen.
Tell us: Do you distinguish between a butler’s pantry, a scullery and a back or support kitchen, and if so, how? Tell us in the Comments!
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Tell us: Do you distinguish between a butler’s pantry, a scullery and a back or support kitchen, and if so, how? Tell us in the Comments!
More on Houzz
Read more kitchen stories
Find a designer
Shop for kitchen products
As with any of these projects, you can click on the image to see more of the project.
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