Shelves versus drawers
Most pantries fail in the same way: deep shelves, 600 mm from front to back, that swallow whatever is put at the rear. The tins expire, the pasta multiplies, and every search is a dig. The fix is simple and it is what we build by default: shelves only above shoulder height, drawers everywhere below it. A drawer brings the back of the cabinet to you. You see everything from above, in one row, the way the jars in the second photo are seen.
The pantry in the photograph above is the walk-in version of that rule: open shelves up high, deep drawers at hand height, a short bench between them for the small appliances. The same logic fits in a single tall cabinet 600 mm wide if that is all the room you have.
Three ways to build it
The tall cabinet is a floor-to-ceiling unit, 600 to 900 mm wide, with two doors that open to reveal shelves above and three or four deep drawers below. It fits any kitchen and it is the storage we recommend first.
The pull-out pantry is a narrow tall unit, 300 to 450 mm wide, where the whole interior slides out on runners. Good beside a fridge, good in a galley. Lower capacity than a drawer pantry, and the runners carry a lot of weight, so we fit the Kesseböhmer Dispensa, rated to 100 kg.
The walk-in is a small room with shelving on two or three walls, a bench, and drawers below it, behind a hinged or pocket door. It is a scullery without the sink. Where the floor plan gives us a room about 2 metres wide, it is the one we recommend; narrower than that and the shelves on both sides leave nowhere to stand.
The details that matter
Drawers on full-extension runners, so the last 100 mm is reachable. Soft-close, always. Shelves adjustable on 32 mm centres, because cereal boxes grow. Power inside a walk-in for the appliance bench. And a finish inside that matches the outside, because a pantry with a white melamine interior behind an oak door is a pantry that looks unfinished every time you open it.
What it costs
A tall pantry cabinet with inner drawers adds between $1,800 and $4,000 to a kitchen; a walk-in, fitted out with shelving, drawers and a bench, between $4,500 and $7,500, designed, made and installed. If you are deciding between a walk-in pantry and a scullery, the difference is a sink, its plumbing and usually a longer bench, which in our number is roughly $4,500 to $14,500 more, and the scullery wins if the room allows it.
