For a long time, pantries have been a staple element of well-stocked kitchens. Their role continues to be relevant as homeowners these days seek ways and design ideas to maximize the use of every single space within their homes.
When it comes to pantry cabinets, you can take your pick from a wide variety that comes in different sizes, shapes, and configurations. Remember to consider your space’s floor plan and layout as well when figuring out which pantry cabinets will best fit your dream home and kitchen.
Need help in your decision-making? We bring you the top six types of pantry cabinets that you can choose from.
Walk-In Pantry
If you have a big space beside your kitchen, a walk-in pantry cabinet could be the ideal choice. With it, you can use multiple walls of the kitchen for floor-to-ceiling shelving. You could even use cabinets to store large appliances like microwaves, blenders, toasters, etc.
Even if you have a small unutilised nook in your kitchen or space that could hold a mudroom and walk-in pantry together, you can consider it to keep your kitchen clean and organised while having the food items and appliances within easy reach.
Freestanding Pantry
If you are looking for the cheapest and quickest way to have a kitchen pantry cabinet in your home, this is the ideal solution to create more storage space. You can get freestanding pantry units varying from fixtures with a few shelves to bigger pieces like cabinets or other furniture that span across entire walls.
Freestanding pantries, especially floor-to-ceiling ones, with wooden or wire shelves, are ideal for organising canned and dried foods. You could even store your pans, pots, and small appliances in them.
Pullout Pantry
Pullout pantries with narrow rollout shelves are ideal for food storage in a single place in the kitchen. If space permits, you can make the shelves long so they offer a lot of storage despite taking up a little space in your kitchen.
Pullout pantries with rollout shelves facilitate easy storage and retrieval of canned goods, food items, small appliances, and other things that often get lost at the back of a pantry.
Pantry With Open Shelves/Cabinetry
To enhance your kitchen’s storage capacity along with adding furniture-style elegance to the space, you can consider having a pantry with open shelving and/or cabinetry.
For an efficient organisation of various items and utensils, you can use deeper shelves and shelf dividers along with wicker/wire baskets, glass jars, and transparent boxes for easy storage, organisation, and retrieval of items.
Built-In Pantry
Built-in pantry cabinets are designed to fit into tight spaces. If you have a small kitchen or limited space, such pantry cabinets can be customised to meet your needs and optimise the use of every inch of available space, thus making them the ideal choice.
You can design your built-in pantry cabinets to have both horizontal and vertical storage space. You may even consider having deep shelves on top and pullout drawers below to create a lot of storage in a compact form. You can use sliding doors or double doors for a built-in pantry cabinet or have an open one that displays your collection of food and utensils to add a personal touch and a pop of colour to the space.
Cubby-Style Pantry
Labelling your food items can help you to organise your kitchen pantry more easily. But if you detest labelling, you can fit together cabinets to create a cubby-style pantry design, where you will have space for bulk items, everyday items, and more in one accessible location.
By designating a cubby for two or three things (say flour and oils in one, breakfast cereals and dry fruits in another, etc.), you could even make it easier to find things without the need for labelling. You could also use these cubbies to store food items in small bins and shallow boxes, which you can easily carry to the kitchen’s prep zone, thus saving time on multiple trips back and forth.
By using the above ideas for pantry cabinets and a little bit of creativity, you can create efficient pantry storage in even the smallest kitchen. If you are a DIY-er, you may take the DIY route to turn a bookshelf into a pantry cabinet or repurpose a closet. However, it’s best to rely on expert interior designers and bespoke furniture makers to design and implement functional and visually appealing pantry cabinets for a “wow” kitchen.
