There's got to be some way to put a door on it. Custom door or custom cabinet door?? I'm with hubby; I don't think a doorless panty would look good. Messy or organized I think it would look unfinished. I'd change lay out before going doorless.

DH wants ours doorless - I don't. Sometimes I don't want to be that neat :D

I'm looking into smaller, double swing doors. My other option (not yours though) is a pocket door.

Breezy- I would want a door. I'm not that neat...in fact, because of the cats, tall pantry cabinets work better for me.

In the remodel, I'll probably have more regular cabinetry (lowers and maybe glass uppers) for my pantry area. More expensive but easier to keep the cats out of...and looks nice, too :)

Jenelle- I like the pocket door option...the door is not in your way and it's easier access...plus you can close the door, when you want to hide the mess!

I don't know if Bmorepanic's has a door, but it has a similar look to yours.

I have a laundry walk-in closet with a new pocket door. It's much better than the old swing door which was always in the way.

Perhaps you could do two doors that pull out from the side walls and pivot to meet in the middle, so that there isn't a door in the way but it can still be closed?

Or maybe you could do a bamboo curtain (painted to match the kitchen) so it would hide the pantry but wouldn't require opening and closing.

Putting a door there would be pretty awkward. Looking at your plan, open seems natural to me. What kind of mess does your husband expect to have? I have floor to ceiling pantry cabinets. The lower halves are very organized. The upper shelves are messy because I can reach the fronts to pull things in and out, but have to get on a ladder to organize. If that's the kind of problem you have--the upper shelves are messy because they're hard to straighten, you could take a step to solving that by making a step part of your plan.

Some people love rolling, locking library steps.

You could kick this under the bottom shelf and pull it out with your toe to get up and down quickly. Maybe put a grab bar or two in strategic places. Or maybe you can have gap for a folding stepladder. Whatever you can do to make it most convenient to use will be used the most.

One thing about not having a door is that stuff can't just be shoved in and forgotten. Maybe your husband is scared he won't be able to do this in the new kitchen and really wants to?

Ok, I've always liked this one that I'm linking too. i have french doors like the ones pictured in my house, b/w my LR and hallway. The opening is 30" also. It looks to me like the interior dimensions are about what you are showing, too. You could leave the glass clear or have it frosted for more "hiding" ability. The only problem I forsee is that they would hit your fridge and ovens when open, if they swing out. What about the hinges you see on some entertainment centers, that allow the doors to be opened, then slid back to nest alongside the walls?

Option #2, look at example #7 from the link. Could you extend the pantry doors straight along the fridge wall, making it look like cabinetry? I'm not sure how they handle that resulting corner space? But if you bump your ovens over a bit more (thus reducing your baking area...)

Here is a link that might be useful: corner pantry idea

Island--Yes, there is a way to get a door on it. Make the doorway wider, move the fridge up, and lose storage and counterspace b/w fridge and cooktop.

The shelves inside will be 12" deep so two small doors wouldn't work by my calculations. The opening is 30" so each door would have to be 15". They wouldn't fit inside the pantry. Oh, but I guess they could swing out. But the fridge and ovens would both stick out into the aisle slightly which could impede door swing.

LL--I have cats too and wouldn't want them poking around in there.

Pllog-I like the double pullut door idea, but wonder if they could fit into walls where heavy duty shelving will be hung on? Maybe the shelves could be built with the supports on the back two walls. (Obviously I know very little about construction!) I don't know what kind of mess DH expects to have. I'm the one who cooks everything, and grocery shops, and organizes things, and ...and...and. ;) When I pushed him to give me an answer to that query, he said there would be "stuff in there people would see." Yeah, neatly stacked canned goods that I load with labels facing forward, bins of bulk ingredients, maybe some small appliances.

I'm 5'8" so not short, but I would need a stool to reach the top. I love that idea!

I thought about a fabric curtain hung from a rod inside the opening. It might work, but I know the accumulation of cat hair it would inevitably have would bug me.

I had forgotten about Bmore's pantry. Doesn't she have all those cool glass jars? I'm going to have to find that thread with her pics.

Thanks everyone!

Hom4eall6--We cross-posted. I'll look at your link. Thanks!

Ok, here they are...

Here is a link that might be useful: pantry ideas

I just checked out those photos. I like the corner one with doors opening out. In my plan, they would hit the ovens and fridge though. In the second one, the pantry must be deep enough to walk in and get to the back corner. Thanks for embedding those.

breezygirl, that is just what I thought, too. But, if you ignore the doors (on the corner unit) you get an idea of what your pantry might look like without any doors at all. For me, it would NEVER work, but I am NOT a neat person at all!

I think there might be another factor to consider. Those pics are VERY well lit to show the pantries. I would definetly put a light in the closet on a switch. The rest of the kitchen will be well-lit. (I keep having to remind myself of this as the old kitchen lighting consisted of one tiny overhead light with low-watt bulb and two table lamps I had to put on the counters in order not to cut my fingers off while chopping.) I wonder if the pantry light was OFF and the rest of the kitchen lights were ON would the items in the pantry be that visible?

Hm.... For the space to pocket the doors you could turn the studs sideways. The doors don't have to be "real" doors. They could be 3/4" like cabinet doors. They should fit, then.

I think it would look fine all open if you're the one who fills it, but maybe your husband just doesn't want to see stuff (maybe it reminds him of the messes he makes?), and that's an important consideration.

Your worries about the fabric curtain is why I suggested the bamboo. Just looking around, I found didyousay.com, who have a bamboo curtain painted to look like a door! (Scroll to the bottom.) You could do one custom to go with your kitchen! Re cat hair, it's going to be in your pantry no matter what. Whatever you put in front of the pantry--doors, curtain, beads, etc.--is going to cut down, but not eliminate, the cat hair.

This was always one of my favorite pics from the American Woodmark catalog. I don't know if I could be tidy enough to have this. ;>D

{{!gwi}}

I'd go with pocket doors. They could be hinged to close at the diagonal, but I'd have pockets on the side walls that once open to parralell with the walls, they would then slide out of the way. Lots of entertaimnet centers have doors that work this way.

From the discussion, each door would be about 15" side, so there should be plenty of room to slide them out of the way to fully open the pantry - then the doors would not hit anything when open.

I live in an old house, and I have several closets that only have 24" wide doorways. While it's a bit tight, it works fine.

I think you would regret the constant tidying up that any doorless cabinets would entail. My wife wouldn't even have glass in the cabinet doors for that reason. There used to be a roll-up door system called a "tambour door", I recall. It was made of thin wood strips that were attached to a flexible backing and wound up on a roller on each side. Looked pretty sharp when closed.

Could you do cabinet doors that slide inside (like you might see on an appliance garage)? That way, you would only have to open them perpendicular and push them back to enter the pantry.

The best example I could find is from kateskouros's beautiful kitchen.

Sorry if someone already asked this (just read through quickly) but couldn't you move your fridge and oven over about three inches each...and have room for a door?

I think that's what I would do. Corner pantries are nice, but I think you'd regret not having the door.

Personally, I would not want a doorless pantry! No matter how neat I and careful I think I could be, I know that when I'm in a hurry things would just get thrown in the pantry. My family is even worse, they always just throw things in it! (And, I'm the one who has to go back in and straighten it all out!)

Your dilemma is that you don't have enough room for door frame + wall framing. In our corner pantry, the door frame alone is 29" for a 24" door. I think you need at least 36" or 37" space for a door + wall framing.

I'm not an expert, I'm just remembering how our corner pantry was constructed. For our corner pantry, our GC and KD would not commit to a specific size until they were ready to construct the walls. They very carefully drew it up on the floor and then built it. Because of the space we "lost" due to measuring errors, we had to make the diagonal wall (the one w/the door) as short as possible and still be able to fit a 24" door.

If you moved the cooktop toward the sink 6" and the refrigerator toward the cooktop 12", it would still give you 42" b/w the refrigerator & cooktop and b/w the cooktop & corner. It would gain you 12" of shelf space inside the pantry and 9" or so in the doorway. It think that would be enough to fit a 24" door. Like this:

Here is a link that might be useful: BmorePanic: Now, with even more Progress pictures

My neighbor has a corner pantry with two narrow doors that open out. She typically finds than when she opens the doors to go into the pantry she doesn't open them 180 degrees, more like 90 degrees. They don't interfere with her fridge or other cabinets. I have to agree, that unless you are extremely neat and have lots of nifty containers with cute labels that you will be happier with a door/s.

Pllog--what an interesting "door" concept! Groovy, man! Can you explain what you mean by "turn the studs sideways" please? I don't know much about framing so I'm curious how it would actually be constructed. I like the idea of 3/4" pocket doors. Would I need to make the 30" opening larger?

Yeah, it's funny (read annoying) how DH doesn't want the pantry to look messy, but he sends guests to his extremely messy, unorganized garage to the vintage fridge for soda! AND he piles all kinds of cr@p on the fridge too!

Houseful--if I had that much space for a pantry I would put cabs in too!

Macybaby--I guess if they were 15" pocket doors, they could slide into the wall out of the way. There wouldn't be room inside the actual pantry where the shelves would be. Pantry is 24" deep, shelves are 12" deep which leaves 12" of interior wall space. Sounds like a 30" doorway is plenty for me.

Nerdyshopper--I think my OCD organizing habits would get the better of me and it would add yet one more thing to organize/clean before a party. I've got enough to do already!

Prickly--I do remember Kate's large doors that slide into the cab. To me, that's a version of a pocket door. I like it.

Lavender--Like I said, I don't know much about framing, but I think Rhome mentioned I'd probably need about 6" extra to include room for the door frame. But maybe that's for a traditional door. I was trying to see if there is any other door option before giving up more counterspace. I don't think I want to move the ovens over, but 3" isn't much I guess.

Buehl--I was trying to avoid loosing that much counterspace in the kitchen. I won't be able to have a pantry large enough in this kitchen to hold ALL my stuff. I'm resigned to still having to have an overflow pantry in the garage after the remodel. I do need pantry space IN the kitchen and thought it was a good use of the corner. Given all that, I think I value counterspace more than additional pantry space. I could see giving up 6" more, but I don't know if I want to loose 12". A 39" opening would only yield me a 24" door? Yikes. I wish we hadn't fired our GC earlier. He could help me sort out the framing. Thanks for link to Bmore's pantry.

Trailgirl--Thanks for writing! So your neighbor's pantry door opens into the fridge? Is it banged up at all? I know I could be careful with a door, but I have two small children who wouldn't be.

I've been convinced--I need doors.

Breezy- Would it work to go with a cabinet pantry? You know, just a run of tall cabinets, with pull out shelves...but maybe not in the corner?

My mom has that and she LOVES it! It gives her tons of storage and she can easily access everything...but it's all hidden from view :)

Turning the studs sideways is something I learned from contractors. If your wall must be built from 2x4 studs (something I think you want for holding up your shelves), it doesn't mean that they have to go in with the narrow edge to the drywall. If you turn them so that the wide edge is to the drywall you gain an inch and a half.

I don't know if this would work in real life, but what I have in mind is to do the narrower partial walls to frame in the pantry, with a narrow channel and a back board on the kitchen side to hold the wall board. You might have to steal an inch from the pantry, but quite possibly not. Inside this channel would be cabinet style, 3/4" or 1" thick cabinet style doors on the kinds of rails with pivots that are used on entertainment center cabinets.

The doors would stick out a couple of inches, but they'd be mostly out of the way when retracted. You'd also need to put stops on the header. But you wouldn't need a door frame.

Other than needing a really good finish carpenter to make this work right, the biggest obstacle I see is the cat hair. It could get into the openings and be really hard to get out, and could globber up the rails. That would be something to figure out before going down this road.

I haven't read the whole thread, but why cannot the ovens go next to the fridge and have a 6' reach in pantry next to the baking buffet?

These are from a magazine. I don't recall who posted them on the KF. Sorry they are not more clear.

Another option:
In one of the many versions of my kitchen plan, I had a pantry similar to yours. There was a window, so it could not have full depth cabs and pantry doors. It had shallow base cabinets with doors and upper shelves that came down to the tall base cabs. Some had all wood doors, some had glass. It looks pretty nice!

As the mom of four young kids, I might have a different perspective than some of you. I have a walk-in pantry with bi-fold doors in my kitchen and I absolutely hate it. I am planning on getting rid of the doors and tearing out the wall that makes it a closet and opening up the space to my kitchen. Instead of having shelving, I'm going to have floor to ceiling pantry cabinets installed.

Now it's possible that this is only a problem for me b/c of what I store in my pantry. I keep all of my kids' snacks in there, as well as ingredients I use while cooking. When my kids are home, that pantry is getting constant use. What drives me nuts? The doors are always open, or at least one of them is. Because it's like a little room, the doors just never get closed by my kids. Heck, even I forget to close them sometimes b/c during meal times, I'm often going in and out of there. I'd MUCH rather have cabinetry so that when whatever cabinet is opened for access, will get closed when whatever it is gets removed.

Obviously, having doors, and what type of doors, will be a personal preference. I just wanted to give you something to think about, especially because you have two young kids. I don't know if I'm the only one that has this issue with having bi-fold doors (or any type of door that requires closing!) Obviously, having pantry cabinets will require opening and closing, but just due to the nature of it being cabinetry, I don't see a big issue with keeping the doors closed - IOW, if I had a designated cabinet that had the snacks, my kids would open/close that door each time, whereas now, my kids will walk into the pantry and spend 5 minutes looking for what they want and then they don't necessary think to close the doors afterward b/c they way they are laid out, they don't really look awkward if left open (except you can see all the junk inside!)

Obviously, if you are good about keeping the doors closed, or if you aren't worried that your kids will be going in and out and not closing the doors, then I'd go with one of the recommendations you've been given. Otherwise, as lavendar suggested, perhaps you should look at doing pantry cabinetry as an alternative. My neighbor has them in her new kitchen and they are so roomy! She originally had a pantry closet that was in between her kitchen and dining room but she opted to remove the wall in b/w the pantry and the kitchen (she closed off the door to the dining room b/c they use it as an office) and then put a run of pantry cabinetry in instead. When I saw her cabinetry, I knew that's what I wanted to do with my own pantry. While I love having the storage space, I just HATE having the doors.

Just thought I'd throw that out there as something to consider. Obviously many people have no issues having a pantry door but it doesn't work for me personally.

Lavender--a pantry cabs would be great, but where to put them? I had trouble putting them in and not ending up with an awkward corner. That corner just screamed pantry to me, but you can't do cabs in a corner, can you? (no lazy susan pantry storage, please!)

Plllog--(Sorry for missing that extra "l" in your name above.) I get it now! I like that idea. We had two pocket doors before demo. The one into the laundry room with cat food, water, litter will stay. I never had trouble with cat hair building in those doors, but maybe this one would be different. My current sweet, elderly, obese cat is shorthaired, and all future ones will be too so it's not like I have giant hair balls dancing around looking for a pocket door home! I know the finish carpenter of my ex-GC was very good, and I have a lead on another good one now that we don't have GC. Thank you!

Cotehele--Thanks for the pics. I can't tell from them if the corner is actually used. Do you know? I'm going to have to play around with moving the ovens over. Wouldn't a reach-in have to be deeper than 24"? I want to preserve that 12" of DR side storage/display space behind the pantry. So with a 4" pantry wall, I'm only left with 24" of depth. I'll doodle on my graph paper tomorrow. And on that version of your plan you mentioned, did you have 12" cabs? And were they in a corner?

Fourkids--Floor to ceiling pantry cabs is what I was aiming for but couldn't seem to make work without an awkward corner. I hadn't thought about the kids' snacks being in there, which they will be. Good point.

So I guess my conclusion is to see if I can frame the corner pantry to get two pocket doors that would pull out and meet in the middle OR re-draw the plan to find some way to enclose my pantry storage. Better find my eraser...

I have a similar door & pantry dilemma now that I've moved the pantry to the porch in the latest iteration of my future kitchen.
One thing I'm considering is a Japanese style door curtain called a noren, which has a long vertical slit running from several inches below the top down the center for access.
See here for several pages of examples.
www.jun-gifts.com/specialcollections/norencurtains/norencurtains.htm
If you don't see exactly what you need, you may still get some useful ideas, particularly if you are a sewer.
Hope this helps...

Breezy, no worries on the L's. If I'd had any clue that I was registering for more than one question I'd have chosen a username that was easier to read. :) I don't know if my idea will work, so I'll look forward to your reports if you end up going further with it.

I am sorry it has taken me so long to respond. I will try to find the plans for my old 'pantry' plan.

Without success, I have searched for a kitchen finished last year that has the type of reach-in pantry in the magazine photos. In fact, those were his inspiration pics. I believe it was a 24'' deep pantry. Very classy and useful. If anyone remembers who it was or has pics, please post. His kitchen had a ribbed glass door on the pantry which was next to a glass-front fridge. It is a rich wood kitchen with green(?) granite, and an island.

Gwgin--What an interesting idea. I've never seen those before. Thank you!

Plllog-- :) And I will.

Cotehele--If you have time to search for your plans, thank you! If not, don't worry about it. Thanks!

just an fyi if you go the curtain route. We have a curtain in over our girls closet. It's a shower curtain (totally does NOT look like one) Because it is a synthetic fabric the animal hair does not stick to it at all. We had a medium haired cat and we also have a greyhound.