Planning your Pantry and including it in a well-designed kitchen takes a lot of detailed thought and work.
As you know, the kitchen is one of the most well-used spots in the house.
There’s the joy: cooking with your spouse, baking cookies with your kids or preparing Christmas dinner with your whole family.
And there’s the angst: the age-old question of “Who left their dishes on the counter AGAIN?!” or “Who’s turn is it to load/unload the dishwasher?!” and “WHY HAVEN’T YOU EMPTIED IT YET?!?” (or is that just at my house?)
But the workhorse of the kitchen is the pantry. And that room, while simple in many ways, also needs some serious forethought put into planning, especially if you’re building or doing a major remodel.
When Planning Your Pantry,
Cortney Haslem puts a lot of thought into designing both the kitchen and the pantry so that both rooms work together effectively and efficiently.
As part of her design process, she initially looks at three things:
-how the family will be using the kitchen
-the way they may want to work together and separately in the kitchen
-what sort of budget they have specifically for this space
Using the traditional design principle of the work triangle, wherein there is a basic triangle between the sink, cooktop or range, and refrigerator, Cortney creates a triangle which has certain design parameters to make the space most efficiently.
Sometimes larger kitchens will have two work triangles. If space has a larger center island, Cortney will design two smaller triangles by using a prep sink for the 2nd triangle.
Included in this area is the pantry.
There are many design features of a good pantry.
One popular feature right now, if you have the budget for it, is to extend the kitchen shelving into the pantry, so there is not a door, but just more cabinets or shelving.
For our dessert (ie, hotter than hell in the summer, but still not quite Pheonix) climate, Cortney likes to design a room for a fridge or freezer right in the pantry. Because of the extreme heat here, and in other desert climates, a ‘fridge or freezer in the garage just ruuuuuns all summer long. But if you put it in the climate-controlled pantry. . . well, that’s just brilliant!
And another almost-necessary feature that used to be only for the rich and famous, but which has now become more affordable, is the addition of a pebble ice machine in the pantry! How cool would it be to have a small ice maker for those big parties where you normally have to buy some extra bags of ice because your usually-adequate-ice-maker just isn’t . . . adequate!
So, whatever space you have for your pantry, you will definitely want to make a plan, so it’s the most well-designed it can be for your space.
If you have any questions or want to schedule a consultation to design the perfect pantry, contact Cortney!
