Get the Perfect Handmade Kitchen Pantry for You

It’s incredibly on-trend these days to have a pantry in your handmade kitchen. And, of course, a pantry isn’t just a contemporary touch with which to impress your friends – it is also incredibly useful. In fact, it is probably the best storage place in the kitchen by a mile.

Regardless of whether your pantry consists of several shelves behind a cupboard door or a complete room just off the kitchen, a pantry really is a must-have for every new bespoke kitchen created today.

The built-in pantry

The beauty of a built-in pantry is that often you can’t even tell it’s there at all. That’s because all the usual clutter of jars and tins is neatly hidden away behind two sophisticated-looking wooden cabinet doors. You will find that a built-in pantry in your bespoke kitchen is also an excellent way of disguising unsightly sockets – as well as any appliances that you don’t want cluttering up the worktops, such as a coffee machine, juice blender etc.

Tips for designing a built-in pantry

• Get your designer to put up little shelves for herbs and spices on the inside of the cabinet doors for your pantry
• Store tins and jars in drawers rather than on shelves as this will make them easier to find (and they won’t collect dust in the same way as they would stored on open-shelving)
• Hang a chalkboard to write a grocery list, reminders etc. Just remember to have a built-in ledge for the chalk!

The walk-in pantry

The ideal pantry would, of course, be a walk-in version (we can never have enough kitchen storage space, after all) and this type of pantry is certainly very much in demand these days. Reminiscent of the Butler’s Pantry of earlier centuries (and where, in fact, the silver – rather than food – used to be kept), the room is usually adjacent to the kitchen and next to the dining area.

And, since we’re talking history, the word pantry actually originated from the French word paneterie (pan being bread) and where it was used to describe a general storage area for food.

Getting back to our ideal pantry though… as well as shelving, it would have a benchtop on which to place and even prep certain foodstuffs. This would also be a handy place for storing away smoothie blenders, food mixers, scales and other appliances that are only in use now and again. Then again, you could free up worktop space by placing objects in everyday use, such as the toaster, in there too.

Other items home owners are known to store in their walk-in pantry include their current wine collection or a large prepping board and sink. The latter is often the case in an open-plan kitchen cum living area so that there is less mess when the rest of the family are hanging out.

The freestanding pantry

Often though, there just isn’t the space in a bespoke kitchen for a walk-in pantry – and which is where the freestanding pantry comes in. Rather like a large wardrobe with plenty of shelving and drawers, this type of pantry is self-contained, with its own large doors. It affords plenty of space for storage and the benefit of the freestanding pantry is that it can be placed anywhere in the kitchen where there’s space for it. Better still, it can be moved around to another area of the kitchen when you fancy a change.

And, in fact, if there isn’t any room, a freestanding pantry can always be tucked away in a hallway alcove or similar. You can just see the navy-blue freestanding pantry in the back of the handmade kitchen we designed and built for a customer below:

Get in touch for a bespoke kitchen today!

Hankering after a walk-in pantry or a clever built-in version? Or maybe you’ve fallen in love with the idea of a freestanding pantry? Whatever type of pantry you dream of having then our team of craftsmen can create it for you right here at Classic Kitchens Direct. If you happen to be interested in the whole hog, as it were, and having a complete bespoke kitchen specially built for you and your family’s needs, then contact us on 01202 481177. If you prefer, you can also write to us via email at office@classic-kitchens-direct.com. We have been designing and crafting kitchens for three decades now and look forward to every challenge a new customer presents us with.