A Pantry Should be The Workhorse of Your Kitchen

This pantry in my last house is roughly 5' X 5'.  Because when I designed and built my house, I centered the door on the entrance wall and it allowed full door casings in and out and left 2 narrow spaces - left and right - as you entered.  I loved the tablecloth storage that I did in that space small space and it removed them from my front hall coat closet, the only other place I had to store them.  That space may have been around 6" deep but look at the usefulness of it.  
These ceilings are 10' tall so I was able to get 2 shelves 6" deep that were perfect for things to be arranged for easy access.  Sometimes there is an opportunity to build a narrow shelf like this above the entrance door.  The key is, it you have narrow spaces use them and if you have a small pantry, think "up".  

One thing I failed to do was space the shelves unevenly for specific items.  You can clearly see I spaced them evenly and I probably lost 2 shelves.  

On the left where you see the cans, we (me and my trim carpenter) were always going to add another narrow shelf above the shelf with the cans, along the left side, splitting that space and doubling shelf space.  

So here is the house I am now in.  Not only is it a terrible design, the materials they used and the imagination put into this is about 40 years old.  (And this same cheap crappy design was used all through the house for all of the closets!!)  Do you see the strips of wood and brackets?  No one does that anymore!  They screw the brace into the stud using no brackets and attached the shelf to the brace from above.  Then they face the shelves to prevent warping.  And they do not allign the seams.  They use good quality strong wood not this stuff, whatever it is.  

I am going to be redoing this entire pantry.  It's smaller than my last one and sorely less efficient.  And to cap it off, the builder put in an old school flourescent light - like from the 70's!  That has already been repaced and an LED can that gives better light and isn't as bright.  I still have to paint the ceiling though, ugh!  This builder installed fluorescent lights in my laundry room, 1 of the guest closets, and the master closet!  It's disgusting that in a new  house, the builder was that cheap and that it even passes mustard.  The guy who is working with me on replacements said they were "old" when he intalled them.  We never noticed them until we moved in because we had a day to find a house since we sold ours so quickly and were forced to be out within 5 weeks with Christmas in there.

Pictured on the right is the "dumby" wall they built under the stairs, and btw, not a place to put a pantry!  They just "picked a spot" to end the pantry.  Instead, they should have gone back as far as they could've.  They placed the pantry dumby wall at the 68" mark, yes 5'8"!  Turns out there is a air return further down in my diningroom, but still this pantry could extended under the stairs much further.  I am going to attempt to go to 52".  What that will do, is starting on the lowest shelf, I will add appox 18" of shelf. They will shorten as we build up.  In addition, I am adding a toe kick since I would have wood flooring on the found space.  My design is a built-in effect and I'll end up with 8 shelves instead of 5 and the floor where I have things stored.  Each shelf has a specific purpose and one shelf will even clear my counter and cabinets of all of my small appliances and make them handy for use.  The current shelves are 16" deep and the bracing and bracket all get in the way of putting things on the shelves, effectively making them 15" deep.  Mine will be 17" or only slightly deeper because stupidly, they  builder installed the house water shut off valve in the center of the pantry wall.  You can see it behind the open door.  

The key is to have a good trim carpenter on board and I was very lucky to have one when I redid my last pantry.  I would sketch out what I wanted and he would pick up the wood and cut it for me.  I would prime, sand, and get the 1st coat of paint on it.  Then he would return to install it.  I had to caulk, fill nail holes and add the final coat of paint.  But in the end it was custom and worth it!