I don’t have a pantry. I haven’t had one in over 14 years. It’s getting old. I have like nowhere to put food. It seems like whenever we go grocery shopping, or especially to Costco, we bring the groceries home and there is nowhere to put them, so they end up sitting on the counter waiting until we eat some of the other food or until we can somehow make space.
Either that, or we store most of our pantry items downstairs in the unfinished part of our basement. Yes, that means that every time I want a box of pasta or a can of pineapple, or whatever pantry item I need, I have to run downstairs. But hey, it’s good exercise. And my extra chest freezer is down there and my laundry, so I usually grab something from the freezer and fold some laundry while I’m down there.
Since we’re adding on to our house soon, the first thing I tried to figure out was where the pantry is going to be. For a long time I was planning on a walk-in pantry or a wall of cabinets, but I don’t like all the wasted space of walk-in pantries because there is the whole big area in the middle that you can’t store anything in. Plus, walk-in pantries take up a lot of room. And a wall of cabinets is expensive with all the wood. I do know that 24 inches is just too deep for a pantry for me. Things get lost so bad for me with deep shelves like that, although you need some big shelves for your big items.
Another thing I want is a huge area to store all our vitamins, essential oils, diabetic supplies and electronics where people can’t see them but we can get to them easily. I also think it would be cool to have some of the small appliances my children use a lot, but I hardly ever use out of sight where they can use them, but they aren’t on the counter to make a mess and have everyone see who happens to randomly come to my kitchen.
So what I think I’ve settled on is putting the wall back up between our kitchen and living room/office and putting the small closet back in there that used to be there years ago. It’s over the stairs, so the bottom few feet are part of the stairs, which is fine. And then we’re going to convert one of the walls that used to have cabinets on it to be our pantry. In that pantry we’re going to put open shelving and at counter height, we’ll put the microwave, toaster oven and toaster. And on a shelf above that, we’ll put the TV electronics that will have cords going through the wall to the TV in the family room. So when you open the doors, you have total access to everything in the pantry, but when the doors are closed, you can’t see all the mess. I’m so excited! I will post a photo below of what it ends up looking like.
In the meantime, I love farmhouse kitchens and I want to see if I can get some ideas of farmhouse pantries. Not only the pantries themselves, but how to make it farmhouse style inside. Because, knowing me, I will end up doing the more affordable, timeless look for the main part of the pantry, but it would be fun to make it look farmhouse inside. Like, with mason jars. I love mason jars. And lots of other people most too, because I see lots of mason jars on Pinterest.
So, here are 9 of my favorite farmhouse pantries and what it is I like about each of them:
1. I love this chalkboard pantry door and the brick wall via Thistlewood Farms
I thought I didn’t have room for a barn door, but it looks like this one only covers the opening and doesn’t move out of the way all the way, which would be nice because then I could fit it, but I hate how you can’t see all the pantry at once. I like the baskets of food, but come on, that is so not a realistic pantry. Where are all the containers of food?
2. I love how organized her farmhouse kitchen pantry is. I also love the barn doors! Via Simply Kierste
Best part? She actually tells you where she bought the various things, so you can actually make your pantry look like hers. Guess I’m going to have to get serious and work on my pantry.
3. I love how she re-did her closet in a weekend and tells you how you too can do a farmhouse pantry makeover via Little Glass Jar
This pantry looks almost exactly like my medicine pantry. Gotta love her ideas!
4. I LOVE this modern farmhouse style pantry makeover with rustic elements via Creative Green Living
I really like how everything is hiding in crates, baskets or jars and labeled. Apparently there’s a lot more I can do to make my house have that farmhouse style, even if it didn’t look like it to begin with.
5. Farmhouse pantry with tons of jars with labels and lined baskets via The Vintage Wren
It really does look better when everything is in matching jars and baskets.
6. I love the doors and how it’s a totally separate room with it’s own window and a ladder and jars and everything so perfect via Hayburn
Apparently it’s called a Butler’s Pantry. I seriously need one of those ladders for my kids, who think the shelves are their ladder.
7. I love this barn door for my pantry. Functional and decorative. Via Houzz
Plus, I think this color of wood goes really well with the slate tile floor and I like how there’s a window in the pantry. It’s like it’s own room of the house.
8. I love the white pantry barn door, the track and the pull out shelves via A Tree Lined Street
The microwave in the pantry is a great idea too. Plus, she got her pull out shelves from IKEA, so I may actually be able to replicate her idea.
9. I love the farmhouse vintage screen door on her pantry. That combined with all the jars and labels are giving me all sorts of ideas! via Olde Windmill Farmhouse
And I love how she even tells us how she did it. I think even I could handle at least some of the stuff she talks about.
Update:
- There is so much room
- I can open the doors and see everything and then close them when I don’t want to see everything
- There is a separate shelf for my microwave and toaster, etc.
What I don’t like:
- I wish I could have had barn doors, but there is no wall on either side to slide the doors out of the way, so it just wasn’t an option. So the doors tend to get in the way.
- It’s just not very organized. I mean, I know where everything is, but it certainly isn’t Pinterest worthy.
- Ones of these days I’ll tackle it and make it awesome for Pinterest, but for now, it’s functional and we are so broke after adding on, it will probably be a few years before I have any extra money to do fun things like make things pretty.
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