Has anyone got a pantry?

[ChaosTrulyReigns]

One that's a separate room?

Could you tell me the dimensions of it, please?

And is it a cold room? How do you keep it cold?

Thanks.

[sassytheFIRST]

Intereested in this as we are about to re-model our house. We'll end up with fewer kitchen units (trade-off is sofa and big dining table in the kitchen ) BUT a pantry under the stairs. It will be prob 1.5m deep, 1.0m wide, full height back for the first 0.5m or so then sloping.Unheated, but not a traditional 'Cold room' IYKWIM.

[blueshoes]

What is a pantry? Is it like a larder?

[HappyAsEyeAm]

I have a pantry - it came with the house, so we didn't create it. That said, I love it, and would try and keep a pantry type space if we were re-modelling the kitchen.

It is a corner of our kitchen, and it is a strange shape - 4 sided but the wall with the door on it is at an angle IYKWIM. As you walk into it, the far wall and the side walls are at right angles to each other, but the wall that the door is on is on a diagonal.

In it, we have the double height freezer (on the far wall), wine racks (on the far wall), stash of carrier bags, booze, and all of the food (save for fruit bowl bread bin and the contents of the fridge, which is not in the pantry), which is on masses of shelves on the side walls.

We don't keep it cold using any particular means. It just is cold, as the kitchen is absolutely freezing despite two radiators (extension, with 3 external walls and no room on top of it), and there is no heat source in the pantry. Apparently a marble shelf is a good thing to have in a pantry, because it keeps things on it colder.

I am not at home at the moment to measure, but I can do tonight. I would guess that it is about 4 foot deep and 3 foot wide. Full height throughout.

[tilbatilba]

My pantry is 7 foot long and 3 foot deep. It is not particularly cold but faces east ( we are in Oz ) so doesn't get the full force of the sun. I have deep shelves to the ceiling holding everything from staples and preserves to platters and things I don't use that often. I have a meat safe built in ( a fly proof cage thing to put meat in). Apart from that it is pretty simple. I have a couple of power points and a big shelf to keep my mixer on so I don't have to move it.
I have fitted wire baskets to keep onions, spuds etc and a hanging rack for drying herbs, garlic etc.

[AgathaF]

We have one. It's just under 2m deep and about 1m wide. Tiled floor and a rodent proof vent at the back. The door to it is from the kitchen, and because of various extensions, conservatory etc, it is sort of in the middle of the house, although originally it would have had two outside walls. It is cold, although not fridge cold. I use it for vacuum, iron/board, dog foods, cleaning stuff and much other assorted crap.

We have always had old houses, and always had a pantry in them. I can't think where people would store all of that stuff without one or maybe I just keep too much stuff

[Eskino]

10x5. It's tacked onto the side of the kitchen. We have our old kitchen units installed in there and some shelving. We keep wine, beers, cold drinks and all the cleaning stuff out there (away from the kids) . Plus tools and odd things we can't find a place for. Oh, the tumble dryer too.

I guess if we had a garage all that stuff would be in there. Yes it's lovely and cold now, and stays cool in summer as its on the shady side of the house.

[ChaosTrulyReigns]

Thanks everyone, this is great. We're just starting to think seriously about renovating and this is way up high on my wish list. I hadn't thought about putting a freezer or similar in there - that's a good idea.
And I'd heard of the marble slab idea - would love to do that.
I think Nigella has fairy lights in hers. But I reckon that mifht be a tad too poncetastic.

[pirouette]

North facing pantry with built-in concrete shelves, a marble slab for making pastry and fly mesh on the doors and windows. It is an unheated room and milk keeps for ages.
Room is 11'x 9' but has a very low ceiling.

[ILikeBirds]

I'm not sure i'd classify ours as a separate room, more like a walk in cupboard. It's about 1m x 3m. Faces north and seems to be naturally colder than the kitchen, quarry tile floor helps i think. Currently got shelving in there and the washing machine. Washing machine going into a utility as soon as we create it.

[SteIIaBeIIa]

We have one and we are in a new build. I like it a lot because I'm a hoarder and can store loads in there. My friend has a walk in fridge

[gardeningsarah]

I love my pantry, its approx 2m by 1.6m. It can be cold in there in winter, think fridge temperature. Its north west facing, it does have air vents in as well. So very useful at christmas when you need extra space to store chilled food. We store all our food (bar the food in the fridge) in there, plus some drink. So in the actual kitchen, none of the units have food stored in them, it means I have plenty of room for all my other kitchen things (rubbish) . It has a tiled floor, it does have a window so in the spring/summer months I have the blind lowered - its a plain white blind from John Lewis.

[LilMissSunshine9]

I have a cupboard in my kitchen - could fit a fridge freezer in there with some spare space - anyhow I have put up shevles and store all my dry ingredients, tins, bottles in it and I love it as my kitchen cupboards only have my dinnerware and glasses in it.

Its also good if you bulk buy as I do when a good offer is on - whether its soup, juice, kitchen paper etc. so nice to be able to store it away.

If you plan one in with lots more space than mine you should.

[LittleMilla]

Ooooh, can I jump on.

Just about to have a pantry put in under the stairs in the corner of our kitchen, there are some old-skool shelves already in the corner, so we're simply widening the opening to make the under stairs bit more usable.

My question is about shelves vs any drawers? Ours won't have a door as it's at an awkward angle so I'm veering towards a mix of the two

[LadyKooKoo]

Saw this and thought it was pretty good for small spaces.

[Rhubarbgarden]

We have a north facing pantry going off the kitchen, I think it's about 3m deep by 1.5m wide. Wooden shelves down one side and a small window at the end. After we bought the house it took me a week to discover it - it's a big old house and the kitchen/utility/cloakroom area is a bit higgledy piggledy and I thought it was just another outside door . We'd already unpacked the kitchen by then so it's just been functioning as a store for dd's toys, but reading this thread has made me determined to reclaim it!

[Rhubarbgarden]

Sorry meant to say it's naturally cold - north facing, thick walls, no heating.

[WishIdbeenatigermum]

What defines a pantry v -f-utility room? I currently have a freezing and ugly tacked in box off the kitchen. I'd like to knock it down and put the washing machine in an awkwardly placed interior room. Could I have a washing machine and food storage together? Would that be a pantry?

[WishIdbeenatigermum]

futility
It's my only joke and I like to use it.

[SconeRhymesWithGone]

We have a pantry right next to the fridge. It is about 4.5 ft. by 4 ft. (I am in US). It is the same temperature of the rest of the house (in Florida so air conditioning on most of the year at around 74 F). It has a vented door. It has rows of vented shelves. We are able to store all of our dry foods/canned goods (and DH's fair few bottles of single malt) there so that the cupboards are used only for dishes and cookware.

[SchnitzelVonKrumm]

Traditional pantries had perforated zinc screens instead of windows, I think, for ventilation and to keep the temperature cool.

[Mmmnotsure]

Freezers do give off a bit of heat, so if it's a very small room that's something to bear in mind. Depends how cold you need/want to keep it.

[ILikeBirds]

I have washing machine and food storage together, but only because we haven't built the utility yet and their was already plumbing in the pantry. I like that it keeps the noise out of the kitchen.

Pinterest is a great source of pantry ideas

I'd like to do something like this for spices

And i like this too

[austenozzy]

My MIL has a pantry/larder and it has a fridge/freezer in there, which has just struck me as odd having seen other mentions of that above. Surely it's meant to be a cool room, and not have something pumping out heat in there? Anyway, it's about 8ft long and 3 or 4 ft wide. And it smells strongly of the herbs that have been in there since the 90s, not to mention the dog food bin!

[VivaLeBeaver]

I've got one. I'd say its about 9ftx4ft.

It's got a small tumble dryer, the washing machine and freezer in it. Then at one end is a big marble slab/cold shelf. I keep loads of wine, booze, sloe gin, etc on here. A big shelf above that which has lots of tinned stuff.

Two shelves running along one wall, full of cleaning products and seeds.

There's a cupboard on one wall and the boiler. There's a worktop above the washing machine and tumble dryer which is piled high with dh's tools.

We've also strung a washing line zig zagged throughout so I can dry clothes. There's a dehumidifier in there so the clothes don't make the house damp.

[ElectricSheep]

I've got one. It uses part of the under stairs space so bottom end has very sloping ceiling. Top end has window with boiler above and a concrete marble shelf under which I store my wicker picnic hamper

It's about 2 m x 7 m and I put up really strong shelving with London brackets to take the weight of all the grub which is all stored in there.

I like getting bits and pieces for my pantry. I got an iron holder a while back. And I've got a special shelf for spices. And I'm thinking of putting a brass coloured rail in for hanging dried herbs.