Thanks so much taggie. I'm glad to know I'm not alone in finding fault with pull-out shelves! That's a good idea about doing pull-outs in the smaller cabinet, I will give that some thought. (And you have a smart dog!)

We enjoy our pull out shelves and I will attempt to post a couple pictures later but to agree with you on having to open two doors to access the pull out shelves I thought was defeating the purpose of ease of access by installing slide out shelves. So we called Slide Out Shelves LLC and asked their opinion on installing wide pullouts behind two doors.
They suggested shelves behind each door, so instead of having a wide 36" drawer pull out, we only open one door and pull out a more narrow more manageable shelf. One thing they did tell us that made sense was that even though their shelves would handle a lot of weight, most drawer slides are rated at 100lbs static (sitting in the cabinet) and 75 lbs dynamic (in action, being pulled out) This weight has to include the weight of the drawer and all contents.So the smaller pull out shelf made more sense even if we lose some space we can now load 150 pounds per level rather than 75. plus we do not have to walk backwards every time we want to access the things in our cabinets, we simply open 1 door and stand to the side as we pull out the shelf. Look at their product line (they are great) and call them if you have questions, the company answered ours very good

Here is a link that might be useful: Pull Out Shelves by slideoutshelvesllc.com

I am so glad to see this post. I am now rethinking the "layout" of a 25" wide, 18" deep pantry. Please send any further suggestions or advice re this. I guess that the depth of 18" does not pose as much of a challenge as a 24/25" depth pantry. Grazie

I have an 18 inch cabinet with pullouts in both the upper and lower portions. I cannot reach the top pullout without a step stool so I use that pullout for items that are only needed occasionally. My previous kitchen had a wider (30-36 in ?) 24 inch deep cabinet. I was forever sliding cans or other items around in that cabinet to get to what I wanted. It is much easier to find items in a 24 inch deep cabinet with pullouts. I am surprised how much I can fit into my smaller pantry. It isn't exactly full in the picture below but it gives you an idea how an 18x24 pantry cabinet looks.

Our pantry cabinet has rollout shelves (like drawers), and the door front is attached to the top and bottom ones. Instead of opening a door on hinges and then banging it with a rollout shelf, the whole door pulls out. Love it, and really love having full extension drawers inside our 18" wide 24" deep pantry cabinet.

northcarolina, I am trying to envision your setup. To access any of the drawers inside the cab, you pull the door open which is attached to the top and bottom rollouts? And there are other rollouts between the top and bottom ones that operate independently?

northcarolina, I am trying to envision your setup. To access any of the drawers inside the cab, you pull the door open which is attached to the top and bottom rollouts? And there are other rollouts between the top and bottom ones that operate independently?

badgergal, thanks for the photo post. I will also have an 18"x24"pantry with rollouts. Did you consider building the rollouts with higher sides to eliminate taller items from toppling off the shelves?

Pull-outs. Our stationary pantry shelves are 12" (maybe 15" deep at best) and stuff gets lost in the back. Pull-out anything would be wonderful.

I agree with Cavimum. In our old kitchen, we had two pantries--one was a closet with 12" shelves. The other was a cabinet with rollouts. The stuff in the rollouts was much easier to see. I tried to use the closet only for very large things and never for canned goods or other smaller items.

We had to give up those pantries in the new kitchen in favor of one pantry with 7" shelves. This is my favorite so far.!

Lorenza, no we did not think about having the cabinets built with higher boxes. I have not had anything topple off in the year that I have been using the pullouts and I stack soup cans and others. I don't recall what brand of draw glides my cabinet maker used but they operate very easily and smoothly. The cabinet maker also made very nicely rounded corners on the pullout boxes and to date there are no scratches on the inside of the cabinet door. ( I had some pullout shelves in my old kitchen that didn't glide well and did scratch the doors) . I love these pullouts. In my photo, the lower cabinet to the left is also a pullout and I have one more pullout in my island. I love all the drawers I have in my kitchen but I opted for the 2 pullouts for aesthetic / form reasons. I have bowls and bakeware items in one and snack items in the other. Works great for us.

Lorenza, I found a previous thread with photos of my pull-out pantry. Yes, the drawers in between the top and bottoms ones operate independently (the spacing is adjustable too). I was wrong, mine's 15" and not 18" as I said earlier. How soon we forget. :) Part of why it works so well for me is that the drawers are full extension, so I can easily get to things in the very back. It's essentially the same space as a 24" wide, 15" deep pantry, just turned sideways.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tall pull-out pantry thread

I'd do something like NC did - but more like this pic. Maybe with 2 'drawers' per pull-out/drawer front. Each 2 drawer section could be for a different type of storage - 1 for canned goods, 1 for dry/pkg'd goods etc. Depending on what you're storing you might be able to have 3 drawers behind 1 or 2. It might work to have 3 for canned or bottle items unless you buy those humongous sizes. You could use the bottom one for large cans or bottle (like juice, water, soda) and have 2 w/o as much height for things like soup, tomato paste/sauce, veggies.

I wouldn't want to be pulling out one with lots of 'drawers' behind it when I just want to get to the canned goods but not the other types.

This one shows deep wooden sides, but I like the IKEA drawer sides better.

I think this pic is from a gw poster

Not mine, but here is a picture of the door attached to the top and bottom tray and the other pullouts inside.

Also not mine, but here is one similar to taggie's - with drawers on the bottom and shelves on top. This seems to be the best solution, I think. You have the ease of just pulling a drawer to get to a lot of your items (look at all that stuff in there!), and the flexibility of the adjustable shelves for the odd shaped items.

KathyNY76, Yeppers, like taggies. I like this as a solution. I plan to place a vertical partition inside the cabinet to provide a full length space for the storage of broom and dustbuster on charger, and other hanging items such as chef jacket. I think I will allow approx. 9" width for this "tall" space, leaving approx. 15" width for rollouts. Any thoughts on that design?

I did my kitchen back in 1989, doing the design myself. I have an unusually large collection of cookware, bakeware, serving pieces, along with six different sets of dishes, so I squeezed out every inch of storage I could.

I was proud of myself for about a week, until I realized I HAD FORGOTTEN TO PUT ANY FOOD STORAGE IN. LOL!

Fortunately we hadn't ordered the cabs yet (whew...sigh of relief). So in-between the dining room and kitchen went two 18" wide pantry cabs, side by side. The backs are covered with a sheet of painted drywall; there's a picture hung on the back of it. Turned out to be great since it semi-blocks the view of a dirty stove and counters when I've just finished cooking.

Both cabs are identical, just bookmarked. Fully adjustable height sliders on the bottom; fully adjustable shelves on the top third. Works really well and makes it easy to organize.

We had pull out shelves which I loved, but I do know that sometimes my kids would not fully open the doors and then the drawers would bang on the inside of the doors. Didn't really harm them but did dent the insides a bit. The pantry where the door is attached seems a better solution IMO if narrow enough. Not sure how it would look with a 36" wide pantry as mine was. Thinking that doing two 15" wide pull out shelves w/attached fronts would have been better.

Several rather unrelated thoughts:

Are these three pantry cabinets located next to one another? If so, I'd consider a closet-type pantry instead of a cabinetry pantry. It'd cost less, and I think you get more storage from big, long shelves than either pull-outs or drawers.

I'd throw out another option: plain flat shelves with Lazy Susans ($10 or so at big box stores). Also consider self-rotating can storage (such as the consolidator).

How tall are you? Don't bother to build pull-out drawers above your head. I say this because I'm very short, and I'm looking at some of these pictures and am thinking, "Great, but I couldn't see into that pull-out.". Those upper shelves, however, will still be useful for bulky storage items like crock pots or paper towels. Things that wouldn't particularly benefit from the pull-outs anyway.

Take your time and plan your pantry carefully. It can MAKE your kitchen!

i had exactly the same fear about opening 2 doors to access the pull-outs. i tried and tried to get a single-door opening. in the end, the 2 doors are only slightly annoying and we haven't had any problems with someone shutting the door on the open shelves.

the ability to see cans at the very back of our shelf is just fantastic! every time i get something from the back, i smile to myself. (btw-- i had them put in an extra pull-out that is very close to the shelf above it. they recommended against it, but i insisted. it is fantastic-- i put all small cans there, on their sides. yes they roll a tiny bit, but i can fit so much in there-- and can actually read the labels better than if they were standing upright, because the shelf is at the lowest level in the cupboard... 2 drawers are below it.)

Kawh707, I am trying to visualize the rollout you describe as "very close to the shelf above it". You say the shelf above it is at the "lowest level in the cupboard...2drawers are below it.). Are you describing a cabinet with a rollout blow a fixed shelf and a drawer stack below that cabinet? Please elaborate if you can. Photo? Thanks

Badgergal if you're out there!!!

I realize this is an older thread, but wondering if you can tell me the spacing of your pullout shelves in the photo you posted above.

Thanks!

BlackChamois, I sent you an email. Hope you got it.

Badgeral - I did! Thank you and I just replied! Much appreciated!

You just need to find the right custom pull-out shelves for your pantry to make it more organize.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pantry that Pull-Out

This post was edited by petersteeler on Thu, Sep 11, 14 at 4:33

I really want a pantry that has drawers on the bottom (NOT pullouts). I do not want to open a door to access pullouts. It seems redundant. My tall bedroom dressers have actual drawers on the bottom and shelves (behind a door) on top. Why isn't this combination offered for kitchens?

This is what I want as well - it’s hard to find examples! My contractor says he can do this, but I wish I could find more examples or feedback from those who chose something similar. What did you end up doing for your kitchen? I found these two pictures that sort of show what I want.

jennifer k are you saying you want as pictured, but to just leave the doors off? then drawers below? that seems super simple.. so maybe i'm misunderstanding. that first picture of the two is problematic, as the door would sweep off anything sitting on that black surface .

I just wanted to see more examples so I could get ideas for how the storage layout would be - and what it would look like open/closed. I agree about the one example wasting the counter space by making it unusable. I’d rather have full depth upper panty.

You can create this look by installing a 15" 3 drawer base on the bottom and then a 15" deep upper cabinet that is tall (depends on the height of your cabinetry) that sits right on top. We are planning something like this (see computer rendering). Someone on Houzz in an old thread suggested you can add a nice detail by installing in a thick horizontal board over the lowers with a nice edge detail and the uppers sit on top. It is a timeless look, IMO