To ask kitchen pantry-havers if they are really that great?

[LuckyBea]

A very first world problem, I know. But AIBU to wonder if pantries are really the holy grail? They seem to be the trendy new thing to have in your wannabe Instagram-worthy kitchen.

We are considering having one. The interior designer says to go for it. But are they really a pain in the behind? After all, you have to open a door and walk into another little room and then walk out and close the door again every time you want to grab an item (relevant - I am a lazy cow)... OR leave the door open, which is more convenient, but means your millions of food items, cereal boxes, tins of beans etc are permanently on display, which isn't very aesthetic after all?

Also, the potential pantry would use up some space from the utility room. It wouldn't be the end of the world, but it's still a consideration.

Alternatively... in a previous house, we had one of those pantry cupboards, with the double doors and the internal countertop and sockets, and it was great. Would I be mad to just opt for one of those, when I could have a 'full' pantry?

interested in all opinions, but especially those of you who have lived with a pantry and are, like me, a lazy cow lover of convenience...

YABU - put in a full pantry, they ARE the holy grail
YANBU - don't do it... get a pantry cupboard (and max out your utility room)

A little stool/step-ladder. I think it’s actually called a butler’s step-ladder.

I love mine. The shelving was already there and I am not a fan of it. But it does a good enough job.

Lovely DH put a small vent in the door, top and bottom.

I used to have one many moons ago.
It even had a concrete??? shelf for keeping foodstuff cold.
Tbh I'm a lazy cow too, stuff would be chucked in and end up at the back going out of date, I was always clearing it out.
It was a pain

We have a small one and I love it. It takes tons of clutter like casserole dishes etc as well as all my tinned stuff, bread bin etc. I just close the door when I don’t want to look at everything. I say do it if you have space.

I mean, do you have cupboards? It's just like a big cupboard basically, but better because you can see everything.

I don't have one, but I have an over-door storage rack and pull-out storage in the cupboards. If I had the option I would have one.

I use our under stairs cupboard, which is in the kitchen, as a pantry and couldn't live without it. Yes I'm in and out a bit but everything goes in there from food, slow cooker, tupperware, flasks and I can just shut the door on it. My kitchen isn't big but if I had the gap, without the original cupboard being there the first thing I would do was have a one installed. It's also an unheated space so your not keeping food in a hot kitchen. I had mine shelved out by a joiner after working out all the different shelf heights I would need too.

We live in an old house almost 200 years old & our stairs is in the kitchen. We have 2 under stairs cupboards. The smaller one houses the hoover & shoe polish & tins of paint etc

We've fitted the bigger one out with shelving on & it's our larder. It's big enough to step into (the size lots of under stairs toilets would be). It has a pull string light & i absolutely adore it! I don't think i could live without one now & it would 100% be a priority if we moved.

My friend has one of those tall pull out shelves that you can access from both sides & she seems to like it.

Thanks to our larder & a separate utility room we don't have any overhead cupboards in our kitchen which works well as its an old country style with lower ceilings so we have free standing kitchen workspaces
Our fridge / freezer / washing machine / tumble dryer etc are all in the utility room

I'd love one...my grandparents had one in their council house growing up and I remember how old it was and how amazing the food was being kept in there ..it's on my list of things I want one day!

We use the understairs cupboard, its next to the kitchen, It's got lots of shelves and holds loads, I also keep stuff in there like the breadmaker, instant pot, food processor and not often used bakeware

I have spent a lot time considering this as we are totally redesigning our house as due to multiple poor extensions rooms are now in the wrong places.
We are in a rural location so ended up putting the utility/boot room away from the kitchen, but close to where you would return from the garden or a walk with a coveted external area for removing really wet and muddy shoes/clothes.
I grew up in a Victorian farmhouse with a full larder with marble shelves and mesh screens in the sashes so a food storage area was essential. I ended up going for a small room off the kitchen ( not big enough for a sink) , but toaster, air fryer etc can plug in there. Lots of shelves and then baskets underneath so when onions/potatoes good a bit yuck you can replace the basket. Yes there will be doors, but that means I can shut them and hide everything away.

if you have DC then yes, a pantry is a most excellent place for hide-and-go-seek

essential in fact

When we where buying our house,we narrowed it down to two houses
We bought the one with a pantry-i grew up with one and really missed it
It's a tiny kitchen and it's about 70% of our storage space (the other house had a slightly larger kitchen but not a lot more storage)
It holds 'dry' foods (like tins/packets/pasta,rice etc),snacks,our laundry basket (the one I use to hold the clothes to hand on the line),veg rack,recycling tub and all the bits I buy in bulk (like sugar,loo rolls,pasta/rice and teabags)
I wouldn't be without ours-i love it

Another thing about it is that I'm not a fan of upper cabinets in kitchens and having the pantry/utility, with all the storage made it so we didn't need them.

In our case it was partly functionality - it's a listed house and we were somewhat limited in the structural changes we were allowed to make to the kitchen, but I've ended up being really happy with the setup.

I got a small pantry about five foot square; the house was built with it sometime around 1900. It has a small North facing window and is always cold if you keep the door closed, so great for storing veg and eggs and cheese and other things that need to be cool but not in the fridge. I like it very much, it keeps the kitchen storage clear for crockery and pans and so on.
However, I keep two cupboards near the cooker for food items that I use all the time: tea, coffee, oil, vinegar, cereals, seasonings etc. I wouldn't want to keep going into the pantry for those.

We have one that was built when the house was - 1930s. All the living rooms face south, the larder, utility, bathrooms etc are on the north side. So the larder never gets any sun and stays very cool. It's about the size of a generous toilet cubicle and has a wide built in slate shelf all along one side
I'd say larders are great if you want to buy in bulk. I also keep my huge collection of plastic tubs and jam-jars in there and infrequently used kitchen items (picnic stuff, huge preserving pan, huge plate for the Christmas turkey...) and veg such as potatoes and onions. When the kids were little medicines were also in there, on a high shelf.

I would love a walk in pantry. We have a cupboard in the kitchen but the heating manifold is in there, so I can’t store much food in there over winter.

Given the choice I would design a walk in pantry.

I had one in my very first house; it was brilliant, and I would have another if I could. I'd also like a separate utility room.

I have an original pantry/larder with a cold shelf. All of the dried and tinned goods are stored there, along with veg that doesn’t refrigerate and appliances.
The only food stored in the kitchen cupboards apart from the fridge is the tea, hot chocolate, herbs and spices, oils and sauces. I’d love a bigger larder though, as it can get cluttered…

We live in an old house so have the original pantry. I have to say it is very useful - we keep all food in there, along with an American fridge freezer and all the kitchen gadgets. Toast is made in there too! It's also very useful for leaving things to cool/ set when baking and keeping the cats away from them.....

I have an original pantry/larder with a cold shelf. All of the dried and tinned goods are stored there, along with veg that doesn’t refrigerate and appliances.
Same as us. I think most houses in the street have turned it, plus the additional under stairs storage into a downstairs loo but I bloody love ours. It's the coldest place in the house in the summer, I have been known to occasionally slide everything off the cold shelf and just sit on it for 5 minutes 🤣
First time we've had one and I don't know where we would keep everything if we didn't have it tbh.

We have one (without a door) off the kitchen. It has a worktop and we keep microwave coffee grinder bread maker etc there. Plus shelves for pasta/rice/cereal. It's great. Our kitchen looks tidier because of it. However I don't think I'd sacrifice utility room space for it. Better to have one big room probably

Ours is just a big cupboard that the builder intended as a tiny lift/dumb waiter shaft, one day. It holds all the dry goods, vacuum cleaners, vases, ambient temperature vegetables. I would not be without it, but ideally it would be on a north wall.

We have one. We just blocked off a small corner of our L-shaped kitchen and added a door and a light and shelves inside. I love it. It's noticeably cooler than the rest of the kitchen because there's an air vent in there. If ever we had a power cut I could probably put stuff from the fridge in there for a few hours. It allows us to keep all our long life food and ingredients and all our unsightly clobber like the blender and the mop out of sight. It's great.

We have a butlers pantry, without a door, it's just off the corridor to the kitchen and opposite a serving hatch to the dining room. 1930s house. It's basically a row of fitted cupboards and long work surface. I love it for keeping all the little used stuff out of the kitchen. It has since had the boiler fitted in there, so sadly it isn't suitable for cool food storage. However there is an old storage shed that joins the garage to the house, we are going to convert that to an unheated utility. That will have extra cupboards for food storage. Old houses have such generous space!

We have the same. It's perfect.