As you may know, I am working on my own house this year. The contractors are at the house every morning working fast and furious to get us back in our home. One of the parts we had to redo was the kitchen and the pantry. Our previous pantry consisted of 5 shelves behind a pair of shuttered doors. We reconfigured a few things and now we have a little bit more room to create a more practical and useful pantry. As I’m designing this room, I’ve been thinking about how we can use the space and all the storage solutions I’d love to have in my updated pantry. So today, I’m sharing all of the ideas I’m contemplating for my dream pantry and my must-haves for any new pantry design.

Whenever I used to design dream pantries for my design projects, one thing I loved to include was a little counter space. It’s so helpful to house those appliances you sometimes use that you don’t want to put away but don’t want out on the counter. When you’re pulling down items to cook with, it’s also ever so helpful. So I’m considering whether I want to run a small countertop all the way around my pantry. This will also allow me to add a set of drawers all the way around which would be helpful to store foil, Saran wrap, lunch bags, birthday candles, napkin rings and all of the little accoutrements that go into a kitchen but tend to get lost. If you’re building a new pantry I really recommend you try to incorporate a row of drawers or a column of 4-5 drawers in there.

Have a look at the picture below – talk about pantry love! I really like the little “lower cabinet” design idea of this pantry. And I love the rolling ladder. One of my designs principles is to build your pantry all the way up so you can store all those vases, bowls and items you need often but don’t want to store out of the kitchen. If you’ve met me before, you know I’m about 5′-2″ so this rolling ladder would be so helpful. In my own pantry I think I will run a series of upper cabinets with glass door fronts on top of all the shelves.

Another feature I love to add in is adjustable shelves. I rarely move the shelves once I set it up, but if I need to rearrange I can do so easily. Take a look at the very practical pantry below. I love the adjustable shelves and the clear glass containers, very user friendly!

As well, I love these storage bins. I don’t like to build too many fixed parts into a pantry so I can have the flexibility to store bigger items like oil bottles, wine bottles and so forth. The adjustable shelves and baskets give you the flexibility to add a lot of storage without building something too permanent. If you have the room, creating a little beverage service within your pantry is a real treat. All of the appliances are tucked away and I would suggest adding a small fridge that you could keep your milk and even wine storage in. What do you think about this pretty grey color?

When considering the design of your pantry, think about how thick you want the partitions to be. Using a 1.5″ wide divider or more gives your pantry a lot of weightiness. Also consider if you want to put something behind all of your shelves. You could paint them the same color as your cabinets, use breadboard or even wallpaper. Since it’s such a small area you can splurge a little in here and it won’t break the budget – much!

When budgeting for a new project, set aside a little for new canisters. When you use all of the same type of canister you will love the consistency and elegance of your new pantry! I’ll be sure to share some final pictures once we get closer to completing our updated pantry. If you’ve discovered some neat storage solutions for a pantry be sure to share, we’ll share it with our other readers.

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