Mine is 4x4 and a diagonal door (so the shelves are on the 2 4 foot walls and that is it).

I use it for my broom, some appliances that are used occasionally as well as large serving dishes, and canned food, cereal boxes, zip lock bags, some utility things (tape measure for example)... It is really random.

Since it is "so small" and with the door on the diagonal, It acts more like a reach in closet rather than a walk in closet. And, I feel it is a really efficient use of space.

Kam, here are some threads to get you started . . .

http://www.google.com/search?q=how+big+pantry+site:Gardenweb.com

http://www.google.com/search?q=size+pantry+site:Gardenweb.com

Ours is being rebuilt, but is L shaped due to a basement entry, with the narrowest area being about 7 ft wide opening up to 11 ft wide and is about 14 ft long. It's basically a second kitchen with a range, sink, countertops. It stores all of our food, my canners, empty mason jars, stock pots, slow cookers, deep freezer, and all of our meat processing equipment. I keep most of my cleaning supplies in there as well.

If I just break it down to how much space the food and small appliances and large pots, it is mostly contained to a 8x7' section of shelving that is 12-18" deep.

Our walk-in pantry is a little over 6' x 8'. We feel it's the perfect size for our needs.

We store ALL of our food except what is in the fridge/freezer, all paper products, copious bottles of seltzer for my husband (who drinks about one 2L bottle a day), wine glasses, and appliances we use but not often enough to keep out in the main part of the kitchen (blender, food processor, ice cream maker, large tupperware, electric skillet, etc.). The toaster is in there and kept plugged in at all times since we use it at least once a day - but we didn't want it taking up counter space in the kitchen.

We keep our vacuums in the front hall closet, and our mops/brooms in our laundry room.

I've posted the picture in a couple other threads, but here it is again.

Ours is a "step-in" pantry, 6-0 wide x 4-0 deep. It backs into a bedroom's already small en suite bathroom, so no room to expand. It's tiny for our 19 x 21' kitchen, but it will be lined with walnut shelves on 3 walls and have a center 36W x 84H x 24D pantry cabinet with a drawer base and upper deep storage cabinet with 4D door shelves and 18D shelves. We may replace the 18D shelves with 6D shelves and dual 4D swing-out shelves later if we find the back of shelves too hard to access.

Luckily, a small pantry makes sense because we will store all our open non-perishables (oils, sauces, etc.) next to the range, all our open cereal products in our 36" wide all-freezer, and we have two large appliance garages that will hide away all our countertop appliances (each 36W x 39H x 28D). So it will just be for canned and jarred goods and maybe cleaning tools/supplies.

If you're doing a clean-sheet design, I would strongly urge against a walk-in pantry, which I believe is a waste of space (the whole "walk-in" portion is wasted space). I would instead recommend 24" deep slide-out pantries or tall pantries with pantry organizers. Sadly, my wife was NOT on board with pull-out pantries; she takes a while to warm up to new things. :)

Check out these pantry organizers:

[Modern Kitchen design[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/modern-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2105) by San Francisco General Contractor Bill Fry Construction - Wm. H. Fry Const. Co.

This post was edited by davidahn on Fri, Feb 8, 13 at 14:55

Here's a shot of our L-Shaped walk-in pantry.

It is also doubles as the rear entrance to the house and the entrance to the garage.
It used to be a mudroom but was coverted to a pantry before we owned the place.
The area with the cabinets is 4' across the back wall and 5' along the left wall, so it's the same square footage as yours.
The upper cabs are standard 12" depth.
The base cabs across the back wall are standard 24" depth.
The base cabs along the left wall are 17" deep.
This allows for easy access when opening the lower cab doors.
Also, we recessed a 6" deep cabinet into the right side wall that we use to store baking supplies and a few other things.
Ours is a small 12'x8' kitchen.
This pantry increases our storage space by about 70 percent.

This post was edited by willtv on Sun, Feb 10, 13 at 10:20

I have an L-shaped pantry but am getting rid of it. Like someone else said, the shelves in mine are too deep and I'm always having to move things to find what I need. In addition, my kitchen is an average size and the walk-in floor space just seems to take up valuable square footage. It also has bi-fold doors which are a hassle to open/close all the time (open one to get to garbage can, both to actually enter pantry). Planning on ripping out the enclosing walls and install some sort of cabinetry that will, for us, be a more efficient use of space.

To answer your question about what's in it, mine houses all typical pantry food (canned/boxed goods, baking supplies, snack foods), oversized serving dishes, crockpot, fire extinguisher, battery organizer on wall, first aid supplies, broom, small over the shoulder vacuum and its attachments, kids' lunch boxes, etc.