Any ideas what I can use for a pantry? - Page 2

[IncaMama]

hm. you could move dishes, etc away from the kitchen cabinets, put them in a hutch-type dealio in the eating space (against one of those walls), and put your pantry stuff in the cabinets.

[tinyblackdot]

Your Kitchen is SOOOO cute! I love it!

[BCFD]

Originally Posted by Magpie1972

HTH. I actually like your cabinets a lot. I think with a new counter top it'd be lovely. It's also be nice to one day have a carpenter mimic your cabinets if you like it, to make a built in by your table. An Island would be lovely, too, but not much help for storage.

Have you been talking to my DP? She actually things there is nothing wrong with our cabinets either. : They are the original cabinets from 1967, only painted white with new hardware (the last owner did it). They are ok, but what I wouldn't give for a nice new kitchen with pull outs, etc.

Oh, and don't get me started on the HORRIBLY ugly tile countertops. We have spent so much time trying to figure out what to replace it with. We'd love to do granite, but I think it would be silly spending thousands of dollars for nice countertops with those cabinets. Even a plain white, low cost tile would be better than what we have now. We are looking into those granite countertops that are half as thick and go right over your existing tile. That might be a low cost solution for us. What I think I hate more is that the last owner matched the oven to the tile. So, we have a tan oven with a white fridge and dishwasher. I just LOATHE it. It's a newer convection oven, so we just don't want to spend the money to replace it. I even inquired about changing the oven door and trim, but you can't. :

[BCFD]

Originally Posted by IncaMama

hm. you could move dishes, etc away from the kitchen cabinets, put them in a hutch-type dealio in the eating space (against one of those walls), and put your pantry stuff in the cabinets.

That might actually be a great idea!!! Instead of trying to store all of our canned goods, maybe it would be better to store non-breakable dishes in a lower area and use the cabinets for food. I LIKE IT!! Duh..see, why didn't i think of that? I really like some of the small islands from Ikea and we could add velcro and some cute material around the bottom to keep the dishes out of sight.

Ohhh...I love all of your ideas!! Thank everybody so much!!!

[nd_deadhead]

Pictures help a lot!

You've gotten so many good ideas! I'll see what I can add, without repeating too much.

My kitchen doesn't have a lot of cupboard space either, so I went through each one, emptied it completely, and only put back what was really needed (for dishes). Things I wanted to keep but don't use often got boxed and put in the linen closet in the bathroom (inconvenient, but I know where everything is). Eventually we got a beautiful, huge china cabinet, which help a lot! But you might be surprised at how much stuff you have in your cabinets that you never use.

Over the fridge - I know exactly what you mean - it's such a convenient space, but hard to keep it looking tidy. In the picture it looks like there is a shallow cupboard behind the boxes of cereal - is that right? Do you need to get back there very often? What I would do is get some nice white boxes, and put things in them, on top of the fridge. That makes it a lot easier to get to the cupboard behind the boxes, and makes the space a lot neater looking.

I have a friend who has a front door that rarely gets used - everyone comes in the side door. The side door comes into a foyer with a huge closet, where they keep coats and boots (they live in Minnesota). She took out the closet rod from the (fairly small) front closet, and put in shelves. This is where she keeps her large mixing bowls, mixer, food processor, cereal boxes, large canned goods - it is a fabulous pantry, and it really isn't that big a deal for her to walk 12 feet to get to it. It looks like your entry closet is pretty big - if you can put shelves in half of it, you've solved your problem (and will very soon not think twice about walking across the hall to use it). We keep extra cereal and canned goods - and about a case of mac and cheese! - in our laundry room in the basement. I isn't that convenient, but I can certainly use the extra exercise.

Finally, the dining area. I agree with the others who suggested some sort of shelving on the wall to the right of the table (in the picture you posted). I'd go with white cabinets, to tie into the kitchen, and either have enclosed cabinets floor to ceiling, or get a base unit and upper cabinets, to give you a sideboard.

[BCFD]

Originally Posted by nd_deadhead

Over the fridge - I know exactly what you mean - it's such a convenient space, but hard to keep it looking tidy. In the picture it looks like there is a shallow cupboard behind the boxes of cereal - is that right? Do you need to get back there very often? What I would do is get some nice white boxes, and put things in them, on top of the fridge. That makes it a lot easier to get to the cupboard behind the boxes, and makes the space a lot neater looking.

Yeah, there are 2 useless cabinets over the fridge. Even standing on a chair I can barely reach them. It's the black hole of our house. I just opened it up the other day and found a couple vases that I haven't seen in 4 years! I did just find some cute storage containers at Ikea for $2.99 and I put all of our cereal in those. It helps a little. I like the idea of white boxes though!

I have a friend who has a front door that rarely gets used - everyone comes in the side door. The side door comes into a foyer with a huge closet, where they keep coats and boots (they live in Minnesota). She took out the closet rod from the (fairly small) front closet, and put in shelves. This is where she keeps her large mixing bowls, mixer, food processor, cereal boxes, large canned goods - it is a fabulous pantry, and it really isn't that big a deal for her to walk 12 feet to get to it. It looks like your entry closet is pretty big - if you can put shelves in half of it, you've solved your problem (and will very soon not think twice about walking across the hall to use it). We keep extra cereal and canned goods - and about a case of mac and cheese! - in our laundry room in the basement. I isn't that convenient, but I can certainly use the extra exercise.

That double door you see in the last picture is actually the office. We do have a coat closet and it houses a lot of coats since our bedroom closets are so painfully small. We do have another linen closet down the hallway that we had a professional install cabinets in (and also in our master bedroom). Now that I think about it, we are not utilizing our space properly in that closet. :

Finally, the dining area. I agree with the others who suggested some sort of shelving on the wall to the right of the table (in the picture you posted). I'd go with white cabinets, to tie into the kitchen, and either have enclosed cabinets floor to ceiling, or get a base unit and upper cabinets, to give you a sideboard.

The only problem with that area is that the light switch is there and I think building something to the left of the light switches would look kinda funky. I'm thinking more along the lines of where the step stool is. I'm liking a small island idea!!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3306/...50020f53_b.jpg

[rainyday]

Hmm. What is in all the cupboards? That's my first though because you have easily twice the cupboard space that I have! I do have stuff stored in the basement, but I think it would fit in all the cupboards you have.

I second (or third or fourth) the idea of getting a buffet or hutch to put to the right of the table in your eating area. Your table could easily slide over toward the sliding doors to make room for it.

One thing that helped me a lot with my very limited cupboard space was to add extra shelves. I bought plain white shelves at Lowes or Home Depot (they're wood but have a heavy duty painted surface, I think), and I had the store cut them to the right length. I bought some extra shelf supports (those peg things that stick into holes and have a little ledge that sticks out for the shelf to sit on) and put the new shelves in several of my cupboards. I had to drill new holes in some of the cupboards (one didn't have any holes at all), but it really helped make my space more usable.

Now I have shelves the height of the bowls are boxes that are in that cupboard. I no longer have to have six bowls stacked up with a big empty space above them! This helped me fit easily twice as much in my cupboards. It made them much more usable as well because I can see stuff and it's not just all piled up in there!

[~Megan~]

Originally Posted by BCFD

This is the horrid space we're working with:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3335/...dc92f9d81e.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3306/...50020f53_b.jpg

and standing in the kitchen looking at the opposite wall (such a waste of empty space!):

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3369/...ffbf87c2_b.jpg

ETA: Here is a better angle so you can see more of the entry way. Those two doors under the oven is what we call a "pantry" (sorry about the big ugly plastic bucket sitting on the counter in this one! I also could have tucked all the junk into the drawer under the oven. )

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3330/...ca052c0d_b.jpg

Wow! That looks like a fabulous kitchen. It's twice the size of mine with much better cabinets. Our kitchen is a tiny U shape and none of the drawers are wide enough to accommodate a flatware holder and the majority of the cabinets are in the corners which makes it really hard to get things in and out. I keep most of my stuff on shelves in the garage as I just don't know what to do with my kitchen.

I'd love to have a kitchen as nice as yours. Perspective, huh?

[carseatqueen]

Originally Posted by ~Megan~

Wow! That looks like a fabulous kitchen. It's twice the size of mine with much better cabinets. Our kitchen is a tiny U shape and none of the drawers are wide enough to accommodate a flatware holder and the majority of the cabinets are in the corners which makes it really hard to get things in and out. I keep most of my stuff on shelves in the garage as I just don't know what to do with my kitchen.

I'd love to have a kitchen as nice as yours. Perspective, huh?

This is what I was thinking.

I have 3 drawers, one is 4" wide. LOL. We have no basement and it's not a good idea to keep anything but canned goods in the garage. Did you know bugs can get into sealed plastic bags of stuff that' never been opened? They eat through them. So, I keep things like my crock pot, waffle iron, cake pans etc outside, but then I have to wash them every time I use them.

Okay, I'm done complaining. I think I would put some sort of dish storage in the dining room for sure. You can store things like crock pots, waffle irons, large containers and pots over there if it's closed- it doesn't have to be for fine china!

I also have tons of stuff in large mason jars. IT works great since you can see what's in there and they are all uniform size so it even makes the cabinets look nice inside. It's only bad when your 2 yr old climbs up on the counter, opens the cupboard, and drops them.

[Golden]

Ikea sells quite small islands, like microwave cart sized.
What is in all those cabinets? I have about the same number of cabinets and I was ruthless about putting things that I used less than once a week elsewhere. I have a small dresser with deep drawers that is in the basement with the TV on it. That is where I keep my lasagna pans, pie pans, placemats and napkins, and extra cassarole dishes. My crockpot in the basement too on a shelf under the stairs. I know you said you don't have basement, but do you have a closet somewhere in the house to put the infrequently used items?

Next, the one thing we did do, and this is total luxury now in terms of extra space, was to put elfa shelving down the basement stairs.
http://www.containerstore.com/browse...ml?CATID=77781
Again, I know you don't have a basement, but maybe somewhere, even on the back of the the closet door, you could use these racks. They are adjustable and you can buy the depth of shelf that suits your needs (narrow ones for cans, wider deeper ones for 2 liter bottles of soda or large tomato cans). A couple times a year all elfa is 20% off at the container store if you have one. Sign up for emails to get notified of when. I think Homedepot or Loew's has less expensive versions too of this shelving. Does anyone know if Ikea does?

[jtsmom]

I grew up in California and the kitchen in the house I left when I was about 5 looked exactly like yours! I did a gasp when I saw it. So therefore, I love it, myself.

I have some of those wire shelves that someone linked to from home depot. I got mine at target, though. I put them in my laundry room as extra pantry space. It's a walk, but not too bad, I'm in there all the time anyway, and I don't need full bags of flour or new boxes of cereal every day.

If that were my kitchen, I'd get a small island/cart on wheels and keep it either in the middle of the kitchen, or where the step stool is. In that, I'd put the big appliances, the mixer, blender, food processer, etc. That would free up some cabinet space.

I also like the idea of putting stuff in boxes on top of the fridge.

If I still needed more space, I'd do something about the table area. First of all, if I could get away with it, I'd get a smaller table, or one that could be folded down square and opened up when company came over. And/or, I'd pull the table away from the wall a bit, and put some sort of cabinet (or china hutch or antique piesafe, anything that is tallish and not too deep.) against the wall where the picture is hanging on the wall, and leave the table more in the middle of the space there. It looks like you have enough room....

[jtsmom]

You know, if you wanted to, it looks like you could extend the wall there to the left of the oven, and add some cabinets there.

[Purple*Lotus]

Originally Posted by elsie

I would look around craigslist for Ikea cabinets people might be getting rid of. My dad uses one of their wardrobe cabinet as a pantry and it works well.

Yep, a friend of mine does that too. She found one someone was selling at a yard sale, painted it to match her kitchen, and she now has instant pantry space. It looks good too.

[greenegirl]

I think your kitchen is beautiful! I love the wood floor and the cabinets and how open the space is. I agree with you on the tile countertop, though. All those little crevices to clean would drive me crazy!

This is what we use as a pantry: http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product...lang=en-US&s=1

Currently, it is set up in our laundry room, which is a small walk in room just off of our kitchen. Before we moved to this house, we used it in our dining room, as two shorter shelves, one on each side of the dining room space in our apartment. I tossed king size sheets over them instead of sewing a formal cover, but you could always cover them if you wanted. We also have several of those same shelves set up for storage in our garage.

I really love these Costco shelves for several reasons. First, they are truly heavy duty shelves. They are the kind of shelves used for food storage in restaurants and can really handle the weight of the food. Wire shelves that you get in other places are not necessarily so heavy duty. I have seen the same shelves at places other than Costco for $200-250, so the Costco price is amazing. Second, as you can see in the picture, these shelves come with a little guard for the back of the shelves, which helps keeps items from sliding off the back. Finally, they are extremely flexible. You can use them at their full height, as shown in the picture, or you can make 2 sets of shelves that are half as tall.

These shelves do come with wheels, but if you are going to put a lot of heavy food items, like cans, on the shelves, I would not recommend using the wheels. We tried that and came very close to a disaster when I tried rolling the fully loaded, full height shelves. We have used the wheels successfully with the 1/2 height configuration.

Since you are also looking for more counter space, you might consider using 1/2 height shelves, storing food only on the bottom 2 shelves, and getting some sort of hard surface -- even plywood works -- for the top. Put the wheels on, and you can keep the shelves anywhere convenient on the same floor as your kitchen, wheeling it in only when you need the extra counter space.

eta: When we still had cable, I used to watch a lot of home decorating shows. I remember on one of them, they painted an oven door to solve non-matching appliance problem. I think you need to use special paint for high heat, but I'm sure someone at a paint store could help you with that!

[BCFD]

Update!

Well, it's a start. I found this bookcase at Goodwill today for $12. The baskets are Ikea baskets that I found at the same Goodwill for about $3/ea. The next time I get to Ikea I may buy 1 or 2 more just for a little more storage on the shelves. I got to move the microwave over there and off the counter. YAY!

Extra Trader Joe's coffee, a few bottles of wine, and our steamer pot on the bottom. The baskets are holding a bunch of pasta boxes (so now I have more room in the cabinet/pantry to find things), the jar in the middle has some fruit snacks for the kids and the basket with no handle on the middle shelf will hold fruit (currently we have some over ripe bananas in there ). I also took out a bunch of items from the drawer and put in a little wicker basket that we don't use that often (wire whisk, spatulas, ice cream scooper), so that gave me a little more room in my utensil drawer.

Not sure I 100% am in love with it, but it'll do for now. Thanks to everybody for such wonderful feedback!

Before:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3369/...ffbf87c2_b.jpg

After:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/califor...33701/sizes/l/

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2650/...89629747_b.jpg

[rainyday]

That looks great! Those baskets really fit perfectly, don't they?

[granola_mom]

I use an unstained basic ikea shelf for dry goods, home canned goods and flour. Most of it is in glass jars, and I like the way it looks. I keep store canned stuff out of site in a kitchen cabinet. Of course mine is shut away in a closet- if it were out in the open I might feel it looked too busy and cover it up. I don't like a lot of visual distraction in my kitchen. The only things that are on the counters are a bread maker and coffee maker, and the only other thing out in the open is a book shelf with my cookbooks and slow cooker on it.

Here's a picture of part of my pantry, if that helps.

[jimblejamble]

My kitchen doesn't have a lot of space and my cooking/baking dishes/supplies take up most of the cupboard space so I just found an old dresser at a thrift store and use it to store beans, rice, flour, pasta, and the top drawer is saved for towels and produce bags which I reuse for garbage bags.

[anyalily]

We live in a similar set up but waayyy smaller kitchen and we just dedicated one cabinet to food. We also have a hall that leads to the laundry room with a small bookcase that I put my jars of beans and spice rack on. Those are things I can stand to look at. Mac n cheese, not so much.

By the way, your horrid space looks like my dream home. Beautiful place!

[BCFD]

Originally Posted by anyalily

We live in a similar set up but waayyy smaller kitchen and we just dedicated one cabinet to food. We also have a hall that leads to the laundry room with a small bookcase that I put my jars of beans and spice rack on. Those are things I can stand to look at. Mac n cheese, not so much.

By the way, your horrid space looks like my dream home. Beautiful place!

Aww..thanks! I agree. I can stand to look at neat jars of beans, but not a box of Annie's Mac & Cheese (although the bunnies are cute). Heh.