Can you fit some unfinished lower cabinets (the set of drawers) in there? Our local Lowe's has them, HD doesn't. If not, check out Craigslist--people are always selling used kitchen cabinets for a fraction of the price of new.

Or consider actual furniture: small chest of drawers or bureau.

Check out ana-white.com for how-to make cubbies, shelves and drawers.

I'm using open shelves with labeled baskets in my "crawl-in" pantry.

Lazygardens, I love that website, thanks.

I was almost late for work this morning looking at that cool website!
Yeah, I have been looking for buffets/dressers with wide drawers but given the room is only 3' deep I think the drawers should be 15" or less. Thanks.

Get that pocket-hole jig she mentioned, and you can make drawers exactly the side you want; shelves the size and configuration you want.

You can even get a lumberyard to cut the melamine or plywood to the right dimensions, and you can use your regular iron to apply iron-on "edge banding" to cover the front edges.

Here is a link that might be useful: I want a pocket-hole jig!

Oh, and you can get wooden cabinet pull-outs from ShelvesThatSlide.com, so that's easy to install, if you just build a wooden case using pocket holes.

(some of their "shelves that slide" are deep enough to qualify as drawers)

Here is a link that might be useful: Shelves that Slide

Your pantry sounds very similar to mine only shorter and mirror image. Ours is three by eight with a bit of room for shelves to the right of the door shelves all along the eight foot wall and deep shelves along the far end. We have no drawers, but I use many wicker baskets, Tupperware and coated wire organizers. Though the baskets take up space they make it easy for me to grab the ones from high shelves and retrieve what's in them with out having to use the step stool.

At one time I thought about cutting out the blank wall and making recessed shelves for canned goods, but we really haven't need the extra space. The deep shelves at the rear of the pantry work great for holding small appliances and larger serving dishes and bake ware.

Love that jig thing!

I would be totally happy to put deep shelves on the back wall. I didn't include a detail (because it seemed confusing), there is a bump-out to the left of that end wall that holds some shelves already. Anything I put on the end wall blocks access to those shelves.
Never going back to baskets in the pantry. We have them everywhere else in the house because it is old and the storage space is all oddly shaped.
Thanks!

Is this somewhat how your pantry footprint looks like?
{{!gwi}}
If you can give me more details about the size of the bump-out I could draw it
exactly and then you could play around on paper how you might be able to
make your space work better for you.

Yes, that is exactly my pantry except the bump out is on the same side as the door.
The nook is 27" wide and 13" deep. That wall straight ahead is 69" and from the doorway to straight across measures 39"
How did you post that drawing? I get frustrated drawing with graph paper because it is so tiny to scale. I wonder if I cut out some little pieces and moved them around.

Thanks so much.

You're welcome. As for getting the photos posted I copy and pasted the HTML code from one of my photo storage sites. I used tinypic.com for most of my group photo sharing, but not always.
Here's a blank for you to play with...

And here's one I added shelves the way I would to get as much storage space without blocking too much of your bump out...

Each little square is 1.5 inch and each darker square is a foot.

OK. Now that is very cool. It already looks like a plan that would work here. I never could figure out how to use the nook and the back wall at the same time(duh).
Now...how do I get a regular view?

Thanks!!!

You're very welcome. I'm a bit obsessive about using space that would otherwise be wasted. By regular view do you mean as you would see it in real life? I've tried using the program Google has to do 3D views, but I just can't figure it out. It's not very user friendly in my opinion. If I could do it I'd make one for you. I can easily visualize something in 3D from a flat drawing, but my hubby can't so I really want to learn that program.

Apparently I cannot use Sketch up either. That was frustrating and a time-sucker. I can picture exactly what I want but cannot draw it. There are a few videos but it still has a steep learning curve and I am impatient. I did better with a pencil and ruler.

I feel your pain. That's just how I felt when trying to use it and I'm pretty handy with most drawing programs. But that one, nope, way over my head.