Kitchen - Scullery/Pantry
When the kitchen is also your entrance Carve out a command station: If your kitchen also acts as the most-used entrance in your home, your benchtop likely holds detritus we come in the door with, such as car keys and shopping bags. Nip this problem by installing command-station essentials by the door. This could be as simple as a few wall hooks and a whiteboard, or as involved as having a custom-designed cubby system installed to fit your space perfectly.
The walk-in scullery is a great place to keep appliances that are in heavy use but not part of your cooking equipment, such as the coffee machine and toaster. It’s simply far less annoying when someone decides to make themselves a cuppa while you’re cooking – they won’t get under your feet. It’s also a sensible place to install a kind of organisational hub, somewhere for bags, notes and everyday paperwork to be stored that’s both on hand and out of sight.
A sink for extra service Providing plumbing isn’t an issue, consider incorporating a sink in your butler’s pantry. Most sinks will require a benchtop depth of 600 millimetres. However, if your space is limited, there are some stainless steel laundry tubs suitable for use in 500-millimetre-deep benchtops. In any case, a laundry tub style of sink is ideal for a butler’s pantry. Look for a wide, deep sink that you can wash large pots and pans, oven trays and even barbecue racks in. Having such a sink in your butler’s pantry will mean you can opt for a smaller single-bowl sink in the kitchen if you wish. It also means that during cooking you can hide away dirty pans for washing later while you feed your family or entertain guests.
Lots of bench space Try to incorporate as much bench space as you can into your butler’s pantry. You can use the space to put small appliances on, as a landing space for all your grocery shopping before you unpack everything, and even as a work bench when preparing meals when you don’t want to do it in the kitchen. The butler’s pantry pictured here is huge and much bigger than most of us could even dream of having in our homes, but your butler’s pantry doesn’t have to be this big for it to work well for you. A designer can usually help you make the most of the space you have. If space is tight, you don’t need to make a benchtop the same depth as your kitchen benchtop (which is usually 600 or 700 millimetres deep). A depth of 400 to 500 millimetres will be sufficient for a butler’s pantry and will give you more floor space to move around the area easily.
Ultimate storage solution for your measuring cups Measuring cups and spoons always seem to be buried at the bottom of a drawer, unattached from one another and drifting in kitchen chaos, right when you need them most. Beckie Farrant came up with this cute and clever idea: paint sticks, hooks, and vinyl lettering keep everything right where she can find it and make converting measurements easy too.
What and where will larger items be stored? It’s a misconception that the walk-in pantry will only hold grocery items. Many appliances and cookware dishes and pans are kept in the pantry instead of a kitchen drawer or cabinet, mostly because it’s easier to access them. To accommodate these bulky items, create some large but uniformed pigeonholes.
How can free wall space be used effectively without overcrowding the pantry? Every spare bit of space can be used to solve a storage problem and a pantry wall fee of shelving is no different. Whatever you decide to do with it, keep it simple – and flat. Some ideas include hanging up some hooks for aprons and utensils; or sticking a giant planner or calendar on the wall and filling it in with events and important dates for everyone in the household to see. A chalkboard painted on a section of the wall could also serve this purpose.
Does the pantry need some special features? It’s really only at the planning stage that you can incorporate special features that will become permanent but useful fixtures in your walk-in pantry. Some of these could include pull-out baskets for root vegetables, narrow pigeonholes for large platters and spice or wine racks.
What budget materials can be used to get a designer look? A walk-in pantry doesn’t need to be fancy (it is, afterall, behind a door and not on view), but nonetheless the shelves and cabinets should be made of a sturdy material with a finish that complements the rest of the kitchen. Solid, polished timber shelves or powder-coated metal racks are attractive options, however a cheaper alternative is engineered wood. Ply is one of the best low-cost engineered woods available. It is extremely strong and looks very contemporary, especially when it is left in its raw state or given a light stain.
Pantry - Will there be enough light? Another typical mistake made when people are building their pantries is to have either poor lighting in the pantry or none at all. Your pantry will more than likely be built without a window, or if it does have a window, it may only be small. One way to make sure that you have enough light in there is to install quality LED lighting, or if your home is a single floor dwelling, put in a skylight. Also, the light switch should be reachable and in an accessible spot by the pantry door.
Use the doors The key to kitchen storage is having a designated home for everything, from your cereal to your herbs and spices. This stunning, luxurious walnut pantry features the ultimate spice rack built into the doors: no more rummaging around for cinnamon or chilli powder in dark, sticky corners. It also demonstrates how it isn’t only fridges that can sport racks built into the doors.
Hide dishwasher away in a walk-in pantry Walk-in and butler’s pantries are becoming more popular in kitchens, particularly in new homes. As a kitchen designer, I get regular requests from clients that their dishwasher and a second sink be located in their butler’s pantry. This is so that all dirty dishes can be taken straight there after a meal, and all large pots and pans can be washed there leaving the main kitchen neat and tidy and the sink empty to rinse glasses or wash hands. Busy families and larger households might consider having two dishwashers, one in the kitchen for everyday ease of use, and one in the butler’s pantry for extra dishes or on those occasions when they have guests over.
Repurpose pretty bowls: There’s no need to buy new containers for organising your clutter when you probably have what you need hidden away in your cupboards. Set a few small, pretty bowls on the benchtop to use for holding keys, pocket change and any other objects that tend to accumulate in your kitchen. Choose a time every week or month to clean out the bowls.
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