Pantry storage – too good to be true?
I am filled with admiration for this charming and beautifully organized pantry – there is apparently no door, and with shelves arranged, trimmed, and painted like this, who needs one?
via Magdalenas Hem
Another wide-open pantry, with painted shelves offering an alluring hint of color:
Jackie Terrel via MyHomeIdeas
Zooming in, you can see that the key to a good-looking pantry is regimentation – and not much variety in your food purchases:
Jackie Terrel via MyHomeIdeas
In reality, most of us do really appreciate doors on our pantries – because except for the rare occasions when a photo stylist has just popped in to organize everything, the whole point is for it to hide all the big, bulky, and ugly stuff you don’t particularly want to see in the kitchen:
Miro Revera via Architectural Digest
The sad truth is, when the photo stylist doesn’t visit there’s a good chance of the average pantry looking more like this:
Closer to the truth - via organizedatlast.biz
Which definitely poses a problem for those of us without pantry doors. And an even bigger problem for all of us who don’t have walk-in pantries to begin with.
One of my favorite solutions for pantry storage in the kitchen is a wall of tall and shallow storage. If you stick to a 12 or 14 inch depth, you can see all your groceries without resort to expensive pullout systems or roll-out shelves. And you free up 10 to 12 inches of floor space – in some kitchens that can make the difference between being able to have an island or not.
Shallow Pantry - The Inspired Room
And the best thing of all? – You guessed it, you always have doors to close, just in case your family does not include a photo stylist.
That’s pretty much what happens here, too – I won’t tell if you don’t!
Please don’t ever pop over to my house with a camera — we have a ginormous pantry with pull out drawers, but that has just led to storing enough canned goods to float us through the apocalypse.
Thanks for dropping by Allison – I have huge respect for anyone with an organized pantry – you are superhuman in my book, especially if it has doors (and no, DHs leaving doors open doesn’t really count – mine doesn’t know what doors are for most of the time)
Nice website! Thanks for leaving today’s comment over on AtticMag. I have an organized pantry, but it has a pair of small doors. DH leaves them open too often – does that count!?
So true on 12″ -14″ deep pantries.