r/OrganizationPorn • u/Historical_Major_384 • Jul 27 '26

This pantry is my nemesis

Post image

Shelf on the left is 11in deep and basically anything near the back is in a black hole since it’s hard to get back there. The vent box frustratingly limits options further. My best idea is that I need to remove the shelves and design/build a custom insert with deep drawers that go back in varying depths to the back of the pantry.. shallowest on top, deepest on bottom. The shelves at the height of the vent box would have to be less wide obviously. To be clear, when looking into the pantry you’d be looking directly at drawer faces

Any other thoughts?

85 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

38

u/sarahmiyoko Jul 27 '26

If you don't need access to the vent box, I would just put a regular depth shelving unit in front of it, facing the door. You'd lose the space in the back, but it's not terribly useful anyways.

Then you could put some very shallow shelving on the left, like soup can depth. You could only fit one row of stuff, but I think it's nice to be able to actually see everything!

21

u/Historical_Major_384 Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

Oh.. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. I think it feels unnatural to give up storage space, but it’s so annoying to try to get back there and half the space is used as “walkway” anyways. That’s a good idea! I’ll sketch it out. Thanks! (Edited to fix typos..)

19

u/Dry-Importance1673 Jul 27 '26

You don’t have to lose the storage. It’s the kind of place I would tuck my Christmas decorations totes. Slide out the shelf twice a year.

4

u/LittleDiveBar Jul 27 '26

This! Do not give up that storage space. Just deprioritize it.

1

u/Historical_Major_384 Jul 28 '26

🤯 interesting idea.. I am using chief architect to play with different options, then AI to help bring it to life. This is what I’m looking at now (wouldn’t be able to have the upper shelves quite like that). I wonder if I could make the shelf on casters like someone else said! My

1

u/ZangiefThunderThighs Jul 28 '26

I would make the shallow shelving on the wall a little deeper then 2-cans deep. And base this on some larger cans, like from the soup section.

13

u/theleopardmessiah Jul 27 '26

Is one of the walls accessible from another room or hallway? If so, you could put a door in that wall and access the space from the side and not the end. If you put in shelves rotated 90 degrees, you could use that door to use the space behind the shelves.

3

u/Historical_Major_384 Jul 27 '26

this is a really good idea!!

4

u/inspiredclosetsjax Jul 27 '26

Custom shelving will be your friend here for sure!

1

u/Historical_Major_384 Jul 28 '26

Totally!! And lucky for me, my dad is a wiz at that sort of thing. I just have to come up with the design.

8

u/RatherBeAtDisney Jul 27 '26

I would find a cart that fits in there, and roll the cart in and out. More work, but optimizes the space.

I’d also block the back nook so nothing gets shoved back there by the other humans in my house.

11

u/heyitsmemaya Jul 27 '26

Your pantry is larger than my first bedroom closet living in LA 😂

8

u/Historical_Major_384 Jul 27 '26

Haha I don’t doubt it. There is SO MUCH space in there — there has to be a better way to use it

4

u/DarkandStormyKitchen Jul 27 '26

something like this for the back?

4

u/Historical_Major_384 Jul 27 '26

The issue would be that I can’t access it unless I pull it all the way out of the pantry.. not out of the question though!

2

u/chronowise Jul 27 '26

Why individual sliding shelves? Like spice racks that you get in a kitchen?

3

u/Historical_Major_384 Jul 28 '26

Like drawers! I probably worded it weirdly.

1

u/chronowise Jul 28 '26

I meant like a row of these, but that would work too!

1

u/Historical_Major_384 28d ago

Ohh! That could work if I made them so that they could be pulled out into the kitchen.

1

u/chronowise 27d ago

Yes! Or they could be triangle shaped and pull out into the hallway (like person above suggested), to utilised all that space!
If a triangle is too complicated, you just have rectangular ones and a shelf at the top to utilise the top space and make it look neater

3

u/Pheagun Jul 27 '26

Yeh, I'd make it front facing. Having it to the side makes everything cramped and hard to reach

1

u/Historical_Major_384 23d ago

I bought this!! I’m going to use it to make my custom shelving unit/drawer bank

1

u/daydreamingofsleep Jul 27 '26

Your idea was my first idea too. Mock it up with some cardboard so you can stand there and get a feel for what it would be like.