I have all open shelving, 12" deep on one wall and 20" deep on the other, and there never seems to be enough storage....grocery items such as canned goods and cereals, rags and old towels and other cleaning supplies in use, new cleaning supplies, paper products, dishtowels and linens, small appliances, casseroles of various sizes...

I think it's because of it's convenient location, I want to put everything in there.

We have a 10' run of three tall pantry cabinets, standard depth, floor to ceiling and as Annie mentioned, does it get filled!

We have roll out trays, bins and shelving configurations in each one. In one section we have a narrow broom closet area ,w/half shelves to store some cleaning supplies and the dog food bin on the bottom. Top cabinet sections stores large bulk and seasonal items.

mine is 18" deep and about 4' wide. It's just me but I'm already running out of space. I put things like my electric roaster, blender, soft pk cooler, ice cream maker etc on a shelf in it also.

they are just open shelves and I plan to add one way up over the top one in it now. well, I'll have someone tall put it in!
that'll be for long term storage. things seldom used.

I don't think what you plan will be too much storage!

Goodness. Our new kitchen has a single 15" wide pullout cabinet as the pantry. [laughing] It is more than we had before and so far is sufficient for our food storage needs.

Obviously with that size pantry cabinet we don't keep small appliances in it; they are in drawers or the corner susan. Pasta, spices, and flour/sugar/baking ingredients are also stored near where they are used, not in the pantry.

Fun fact of the day: you can fit 9 cereal boxes (upright) in the bottom drawer of a 15" Ikea pullout cabinet.

Wow! Something I would never have known. How about this one: A 12" deep shelf will hold standard soup cans 5 deep. Another: You have to pull out 4 to see what the 5th one is.

Camphappy, you might want to move cautiously here. Answers seem to suggest that storage needs expand until they overstress the storage available. Like traffic on a new freeway. My sis and her husband used to live near Yosemite and would drive down to the closest market, in giant bustling Mariposa, every three months or so to do a shopping, and I'm not sure what they came home with would need all the storage described.

I will offer that pullouts offer more efficient storage that will hold more because you don't need to leave reaching, shuffling, and looking room above and around items. So maybe pull-out shelves at least?

I use 2 cabinets, one 24" wide and 24" deep and a pullout 12" wide by 24" deep. I also have a drawer (24") next to my stove where I do my baking and have my flour, sugar and such. My small appliances are on the back of my island in 13" deep cabinets. That is for a family of 4 (the 2 dogs would be offended to not be included, but their supplies are under the prep sink), family meals for 16-25, and teen parties of 15-50, a lot of cooking and baking. I also keep staples on hand for impromptu meals and changes in plans rather than shop for a weekly list, so my storage needs are probably greater than average.

My experience with shelving is that you can get too deep. The pantry I had here before had deep shelves (16 or 18") for the majority of it and a lot of things tended to get lost. You need an area with deeper shelves for large items or bulk purchases, but everything else should be on the narrower side. JMO

Back again to ditto rosie and lascatx. Our 15" wide pullout is the space equivalent of a 15" deep, 24" wide, 63" tall pantry cabinet. If you have the room to bring your pantry cabinets out to 24" deep, then I'd recommend considering turning them sideways as pullout cabinets instead. Things don't get lost in the back if there IS no back (i.e. shelves come out to meet you and you can access them from both sides).

Thank you all for the great advice. I'm thinking if I went with the shallower 12" shelves I would not need pullouts. At what depth of a shelf do you think begins to require the pullouts? I'm trying to keep these cabs low profile against a wall so I think wider shallow ones might be better than narrower deep ones, if that makes sense.

Camphappy,

I would go at least 15" for some good, useable space, but not deeper than 18'-ish. I had 24" deep pantry cabinets in a former home, and HATED them. Things always got lost in the back. Not sure how much food I ended up throwing out during the years in that kitchen! Different story if you have pull-outs though.

In my mom's kitchen she had this pantry cabinet that was only 12'' deep. She was always loosing something which us kids had too fech for her. In my kitchen I am putting in a 24x24 pantry but the shelves will pullout.

Do you buy a lot of stuff at places like Costco or the like where you'd want deeper areas? I have a SUPER deep pantry and it is a nightmare. So much so that I turned our coat closet into our main pantry. So don't go too deep.