Pantry

My pantry is the part of the house that usually impresses guests the most. It’s clean, well lit, and organized, and it stays that way. I have dreamed of a pantry like this all my adult life and I finally have it.

To create it, we took a window wall and built this 6x8 foot pop out box. So you have to picture this box attached to the outside wall where a window used to be. If you have an outside wall available to your kitchen, it’s not hard to do. It’s just big enough for one person to stand in the middle and see everything. It is directly next to the refrigerator, so all of our food is in this corner.

The first thing that people notice is that the light comes on automatically when you open the door. Easy little switch installed in the door frame, just like your frig or oven. You know that you always have your hands full either coming in or going out, so it is nice not to have to fumble for the light switch.

The shelves are a standard 12 inches deep, so things don’t get lost in the back. Bigger, heavier items are simply stacked directly on the floor. If I had a typical closet style pantry, the first thing I would do is take out the shelves and create this U shape, even if they were only a few inches deep. It might seem like you are losing space, but I think it would be a more usable solution. Our contractor used carpentry biscuits for the joints, if that means anything to you.

I went to a lot of trouble to make sure that you are not confronted with a wall of labels when you open the door. The clear round containers were purchased from the professional kitchen store. They pop into the dishwasher and I can rotate the contents easily. Three baskets hold the smaller items and break up the landscape a little.

I removed all the labels from the big Costco spice containers. You can tell what they are by looking at them. Although I think that Trader Joe’s has done a good job of making their boxes and cans pleasant to look at.

Spices drive me crazy. Ultimately, I’d like to have all clear matching jars, but at $1 each, that would be at least a hundred bucks. You can never find what you need that matches what you have, so you end up with a mishmash.

I used leftover flooring pieces to create little stairs for the jars. I know I could do better if I bothered to saw them off at uniform lengths, but this works for me now. Yes, they are organized alphabetically (by type of jar). It’s anal.