Your over-wide picture has once again deformed the text wrap, so your text is impossible to read since it runs under ad boxes. (Not your problem, just how GW handles images that are wide.)

It would be helpful - and you're likely going to get more responses - if you post another copy of your text in a separate comment below. The reason this will work is that the ads only appear at the top of the page, not farther down. Even though your text will always be oversized (once anyone posts a wideiimage, anywhere in the thread the shape of the text boxes is distorteted), w/o ad boxes to obscure it, it will still be readable.

To avoid this in the future modify the dimensions of image in PB before loading it here. Since this particular one is inherently wide, you might find rotating it is another solution.

Meanwhille, please just copy and paste only your text in a comment below this one and you should be just fine.

Look forward to seeing it!

Thanks,

L.

Thanks Liriodendron,

Sorry about the ad boxes. I never realize that it is an issue as it does not show on my computer. I appreciate your feedback. Here is the original text from my opening comment. I hope you can read it now.

Original post below so all can read without pesky ads covering it.

I am trying to design a small pantry. I have read the helpful info on pantry designs on this site and elsewhere and appreciate those posts. Now it is time to decide if I want doors with shallow shelves inside (closet style) or all cabinetry with or without pull-outs or even with bat wings (doors with storage capacity and shelves within). Before I get too committed to the design I thought I would post the dimensions of the space I have available for your thoughts and creativity which I seem to be out of.

The dumb waiter has to stay in the marked location to work with the basement level below, and the hall closet is existing and we don't want to lose it and there is no where else to move it to. The freezer needs to fit into this run, but does not have to go exactly where shown. The door could swing on a different side if needed as we are likely going to replace it with a new one as the current one leaks at bit.

Planned uses for the available space:

1) Storage of snack food (granola bars, crackers, rice cakes, apple sauce, drinking boxes, nachos etc.) Please note, there will be another food storage area elsewhere in the kitchen that will hold baking and cooking ingredients (i.e. floors, cans, pasta, spices, oils).

2)Cookbook storage

3)A phone and message area (not a full drop zone/mail sorting as that is in mudroom). I am old fashioned and prefer to use a land line with a cord where possible (portable phones don't seem to work well with our phone lines). I might like a calender too. We would also like some removable basket or two with drawing and a few school supplies for working at the nearby island.

4)Garbages (2) one for waste and the other for recycling

5)A landing area for things going into/out of freezer or for the inevitable frozen hunt for something. This landing area could be a cart as a cart could be very useful for dealing with distribution of groceries and other tasks in our large kitchen, but does not have to.

The best I can come up with is splitting the available area into two with: (1) a lower cabinet with garbage pullouts, counter on top for message centre and freezer landing and shallow shelves above for cookbooks. This cabinet could have a drawer for school supplies in removable baskets. (2)then using the rest of the available space for a pantry with bat doors for storage of food in doors and shelves behind.

What do you think? I would love your ideas. The available space and dimensions are shown below:

TIA!

Carol

Carol,

I see your posts just fine...the ad boxes are to the right of your posts, on my screen. But, I have a wider screen, compared to my old computer :)

Carol,

Now I can read what you wrote. Thanks!

1) I see your call out for the dimensions of the all-freezer is 28". That seems narrow to me, but then I've never had one. Keep in mind that sometimes fridges (and presumably freezers, too) need an inch or so airspace for breathing room - and for ease of extraction from time to time. And if it is to enclosed in cabintry sides, that will eat up an inch or a bit less from the space available for the pantry portion.

2) If you are thinking of a two section pantry with a countertop (for plunking) in between, keep in mind that usually uppers are shallower than lowers so you may not have much space for storage on top, particularly for the bat-wing type functional doors. Doors covering shelves or doors that pullout and reveal contents from the side may be the only choices you have.

3) regarding door swing: which way do you think of yourself traveling after retrieving things from the freezer? The door opening should not confound that natural travel route. And ideally the pantry should be along that route in the same direction so you don't have to reach around the freezer drawer to grap an item in the pantry.

4) Is this a so-called "counter-depth" appliance? Does that mitigate completely the problem of the hinge being blocked from full swing on the thick door? Or does the appliance stick out sufficiently into the walking space to allow that? You don't have a right angled full wall at either end of this space, but if the hinging point is a couple of inches behind the front of the appliance, you may still not be able to open the door fully.

HTH

L.

I see you rotated the image while I was typing - and that completely did the trick. I was going to go back and copy your image over into my PB account and modify it and then bring it back along with information on what the needed parameters are to avoid breaking the textwrapping (I've forgotten them completely as I haven't posted from PB for years).

But whatever you did works perfectly and the text is not longer sprawled all over the page under the ads.

L.

Thank you liriodendron for your helpful points to consider regarding door swings and travel routes. I appreciate the reminder of air space and ease of freezer door opening. Your comments are always useful.

At present the dimensions of the freezer listed corresponds to our existing upright freezer which is leaking a bit so should probably be replaced. Similar sized freezers are available. However this freezer and most reasonably priced uprights tend to be short (60 inches high).

Late last night I got the idea of getting a narrower, but taller freezer that would offer the same capacity (12 cubic feet), but take up less width and a bit less depth. This freezer could then go into the closet pantry instead of beside it. My idea so far has yielded expensive freezers like Thermador which were quite a bit more than we had planned on. My DH proposed we could do two very short upright freezers placed in the pantry. I will search to see what his idea yields.

Any other thought anyone?

Carol

Hmm.... I think I'd move the freezer to the opposite end and put end panels on the sides... Make it look built-in with a cabinet above.

As for a snack pantry... I think I'd just do a 36-38" drawer stack. This way kids can grab their own snack and aren't climbing on a shelf to reach the good stuff... Then you could do an 18" trash pullout that has one can for recycling and one for trash next to dumbwaiter.

The counter would be free for landing zone or a lunch box...

I'd be tempted to try something like this :

Forget the desk. Do the trash and snack pullouts below the counter. Run thr two tiered counter so the phone is out of the way and maybe pencil/ pen holders etc. Then a large pin board for photos, reminders, schedules, then a long horizontal cabinet running the entire (56"- trim for freezer) length for cookbook storage....

And one other photo I found interesting:

Or this :

The last one has all the problems of the bat wing doors and I think it'd be a hassle to open a cabinet for a ringing phone but it would disguise the school supplies, phone etc...

Just a few of my thoughts. In. My unqualified opinion I prefer the first option, but I thought I'd throw out a few pictures to show possibilities.

Fun space, Im sure you and the gurus here will come up with something great. Good luck!

Iheart,

Thanks very much for your good ideas and inspiring photos. Very good point about doing the taller elements on either side (dumb waiter on right, freezer on left) with trim to tie them in. I really like that second image with the roll up top which I would love to use somewhere in the home.

The more I think about it, the more I am willing to forgo the need for phone, calendar, writing implements, message centre, etc. in the kitchen to allow more room for a wider pantry (although I like your desk images for another room). We can have the phone/message centre in a nearby room.

My big question is whether we might be better off having the freezer inside a closet style pantry to facilitate using a shelf from inside the pantry as the landing area. Obviously at an interior depth of 27 ish inches it would be barely a step in closet, and we would have to pay the bucks for a counter depth freezer. I do realize that shallow storage for pantry items is more valuable than deeper so I am trying to work that in.

Anyone have an opinion if I should consider putting the freezer inside the pantry or leaving it out as a separate element?

Thanks all.

Carol

Hi all,

Well, I think we have come up with our plans for the pantry/dumb waiter/freezer wall. I have combed through past pantry threads and hope I have a plan that will work. I was very inspired by Buehl's message niche, and have incorporated that into my design as well (thanks Buehl!). I was also inspired by the manual dumb waiter incorporated by Tsdiver. I will be using the same manual dumb waiter that she did. I have linked her post below as I hope to have cabinetry around my dumb waiter like she did -- hers is beautiful. I hope you don't mind me showing new members your gorgeous kitchen, Tsdiver.

Any comments or suggestions?

Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: dumb waiter thread

I think you have designed pretty much a perfect pantry. I think you will love the varying depths of shelves. I suggest you swap which side the 5" and the 14" shelves are on. For some reason, I want the 5" shelves on the door opening side and the 14" shelves on the door hinge side. It would also take your pantry opening closer to the dumbwaiter for unloading groceries from dumbwaiter into pantry (will groceries come in that way?).

Be careful when you order your freezer. Many do not have field reversible doors and will only open one way or the other. There are many models that do have field reversible doors however.

I also suggest you have the broom cabinet face out on the end instead of a pullout. Less expensive to do and easier to access. There are many examples of people who have done this on GW. 2LittleFishies's broom cabinet comes to mind. http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg0222274329904.html

This post was edited by angela12345 on Tue, Aug 6, 13 at 14:46

Thanks for your feedback, Angela. Glad you think the design will work. I agree with you about having the 5 inch side closer to the opening. That is the way we had it the first time, so that was my first instinct too. However, we switched it so that the message/calendar niche could be on the wider side and near the pantry door (pantry door will have cork board on the back side it for notices) and beside the white board on the dumb waiter door. I figure from standing at the message centre niche, I have access to the phone, pens, calendar, cork board with notices and the message board on the dumb waiter door. Seating at my island is right behind me for longer conversations.

The broom closet pull-out is awkward. I did not realize that the pullouts were expensive. We have that awkward space at the end because where the dumb waiter is positioned is not able to be altered to allow a wider broom cabinet. The space available is only 6-7 inches wide. I could do a 1 foot deep door and sort of put the brooms in on an angle. Would that be better than the pullout? What other options would we have for this narrow deep space?

The dumb waiter, BTW, will be for bringing up groceries (our garage is in basement level), taking down trash, bringing food/dishes to and fro the rec room downstairs (there is a small kitchenette there). The dumb waiter starts in the mudroom (first room from garage) and goes to kitchen. I am really looking forward to having this feature.

Thanks for linking fishes' kitchen. It is loaded with cool features!!

Thanks again.

Carol

My post this morning was done on the ipad, then I got offline. I didn't realize the pictures weren't showing up. I have edited my post above to show the pictures. I am talking about having your broom closet face out the other way like pics above. So it will be 30" wide and about 7" deep. Unless there is a wall there already that cannot go away so that's why it has to be a pullout ?

Good reasons for 14" shelves & phone niche to stay where it is !!

I think you will love the dumbwaiter. We have an elevator at our beach house, with the kitchen, living, and our bedroom on the top floor. We love being able to unload everything from the car at one time and send it up. I shudder to think what it would be like to have to cart it all up ourselves. It is 42 steps up to the living level on the 3rd floor !

Unfortunately, there is a wall on the far right beside the broom cupboard (leads to some basement stairs. I guess I will have to deal with the pullout- or just do a shallow/narrow door closet. I could do it elsewhere, but probably a bit too far out from the areas needing sweeping. I will play with it a bit more.

I saw in your drawer post the gorgeous kitchen you had at that vacation house! I noticed you had a broom pullout. Is it really that awkward to use? How nice to have an elevator there (42 steps with groceries would be awful).

Carol

Nope, it's easy to use. And I love it !! But if I had the option, I would have done it facing out the end instead of pullout. As you saw from the pics, I have a wall there (it's a bookcase), so it had to be a pullout or nothing.

edit: to include picture she is talking about . . .

This post was edited by angela12345 on Tue, Aug 6, 13 at 16:35

Oh, have you done a search for broom pullouts ? There have been many of them over the years. The first one that I ever heard of came from someone over at Ikea Fans.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22broom+pullout%22+site%3Agardenweb.com

I like your pullout. -- thanks for the picture and other links! I think that will work for us too. I agree the one like fishes' would be more convenient to use, but our space is better suited for a pullout. Thanks for your help today, Angela.

Carol