Time for another room (space? area?). Here is a biggie and where we upgraded and changed the most...other than the kitchen, ha.
This is the original floor plan and it came with this pantry. Notice they mention the 'freezer space'...that's what we mentioned last time in the laundry room tour, we moved the freezer into the laundry room to gain that space in the pantry. Because this pantry was way too small for what we have dreamed of, that wasn't the only way we were able to gain space...
There was also this space in the garage, probably for storage or a workbench or something.
But when we saw it, we thought "hmm...what if we took that and made it part of the pantry?" It was on the other side of the same wall so, after some back and forth with architect drawings (we mentioned that we stretched this end of the house to have a bigger kitchen) they helped us make the pantry longer than on the original plan.
We ended up with this:
8' wide by 16' long!
128 square feet of glorious pantry space!
The hallway is the path from the kitchen (on the left) to the garage (on the right). The pocket door at the top is for the laundry room and we will have a matching pocket door to go into the pantry.
There was a window at the end when it was garage area that we did away with because a) more wall space in the pantry and b) always best not to have light and potentially additional heat and/or cold coming into where your food items are kept.
But wait, there's more, ha!
Next, we decided "how do we maximize the space in here?" We opted for floor to ceiling shelving along each side. Then, at the end, where the window would have been, what do we do there? Do we decide to go with floor to ceiling shelves along that wall too? Nope, we decided to go full on butler's pantry! Well, that's what the builder is calling it, ha. We are having kitchen cabinets put all along the back wall with a countertop.
We are having the same countertop as the bathrooms, the soapstone black and the same style gray cabinets.
As for electrical, there are three recessed lights down the middle so it will be easy to see everything we have and as we always say, you can never have too many outlets. One on each end of the counter and then one on each side at normal outlet height (midway into the pantry) in case we needed to plug in something else.
There will be floating shelves above the counter that will look much like the above. This space at the end will give us some additional prep space. He wants to put all of his mixing bowls up there and then use the counter below as a place for his mixer without having to keep it out on the kitchen counter.
The built-in shelves are normally powder-coated wire or a simpler wood style, but we wanted something with a cleaner and more built-in look. So, we are having them built like the above. These are shelves from a different model that were upgraded, and we liked this look.
We said to make ours look like that and then we made the bottom two a little tall for larger things. We thought about going higher but figured the top could also be used for larger items or lighter weight bulk items, for example, a dozen rolls of paper towels or baskets to store things in, etc.
And if you want to imagine what it will look like finished, here are a couple of pics that are almost identical to what we'll get. In fact this first one was actually our inspiration for a few years before we got to this point and it's kind of funny how it's going to come out pretty close to what we dreamed of.
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| Pantry image via Pinterest |
This was the first photo we ever saw online that made us wish for something like this...and now, here we are, about to have one almost exactly like it!
Here's another we found that is pretty close:
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| Pantry image via Pinterest |
I added the "floating shelves" to the photo above, just so we could see what it looks like. Ours will have cabinet doors on the lower section instead of open like this one but otherwise, almost the same as we'll get.
Like the two photos above, as you walk into the pantry, the shelves will stretch all the way to the back where they will end (with a panel) at the counter.
When you walk in, the shelves start a bit further down and so we will use the empty wall spots on each side for the red, metal, pegboard panels that we salvaged from the kitchen at the farm.
They can be placed in single sections in a line, and this will give 2nd Man even more space for hanging tools and things that he needs quick access too.
For the flooring, we opted to match the laundry room (and guest bathroom) tile as above. Who needs a boring pantry when you can add some pizazz!
This truly is a dream pantry for us. You know we're foodies so we want to stock it with lots of food and supplies with fewer trips into town for stuff. Then, once we have our garden/orchard producing, I can start canning and will have space for that. Win/win.
Next time...the kitchen island, yes that will need a post all its own, ha.
