Pantry - rollout, pullout, or both

14 years ago

Our pantry (frameless cabinetry) is going to be 30" wide, 24" deep. I'm trying to decide what would be best.

1.) Both doors open to reveal roll-outs that span across so each roll out would be about 28" wide for each one.

2.) One door has a roll-out, and the other one a pull-out. (Will the roll-out portion be too narrow to be functional if it's only a 15" cabinet? I'm not worried about the pull out as it's nature is to be narrow-ish to make it easy to get things.

3.) Both pull-out.

Borrowed photo from theanimala's kitchen showing option #2:

Featured Answer

beeps

14 years ago

Hmm... I see what you mean. And those are some well-packed pull-outs! =) With a lot of boxed goods on them... they don't look as canned goods/pasta and rice bags friendly as roll-outs. Personally, I don't keep a lot of boxed goods in my pantry so they still wouldn't work as well for me. My parents had bins on the bottom of their roll-outs for oranges, potatoes, onions, etc. too, so from how I've seen them used I would still say roll-outs would be better because to me they seem more versatile.

Also, as far as surface area/inches of storage - I think you would get more with the roll-outs. OK, I just measured the pantry in my current house and it is 25" wide and 24" deep (and it just has shelves). Yours will be only slightly bigger. Honestly it isn't that big, although plenty big enough, but I would not want to lose much useable space switching from roll-outs to pull-outs.

As I think about it, with the roll-outs you will lose some space on the edges, not sure how that would compare to pull-outs. Either way you will lose a few inches probably. I'm tall enough that just having shelves works fine, I can see everything even on the top shelf, and I actually probably have more storage area by not having pull-outs or roll-outs.

If it were me I would go with roll-outs (or just shelves! :), and maybe put some wire bins/baskets on a few of the roll-out shelves to mimic the pull-outs. Maybe that way you could have the best of both worlds?

Not sure if that is any help. Mostly me thinking out loud. It also seems a big part of the best answer for you will be dependent upon what types of things you keep in your pantry. Lots of dog food - kibble in a big bin and cans - in mine, so pull-outs wouldn't work well for me! =) It's all about the dogs in my house! :)

Good luck with your decision.

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Comments (6)

andreak100
Original Author
14 years ago
Hopefully it posts the picture this time.
beeps
14 years ago
Even without pics :) I vote #1. My parents had something like that and it was very convenient. I would think you would lose quite a bit of space by doing one roll-out and one pull-out - there will be that dead area where they transition. 1" dead air where they don't meet x 24" deep x ? height = a lot of storage space =)
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eam44
14 years ago
Ditto. What beeps said.
andreak100
Original Author
14 years ago
Can't figure out why the image won't post. The reason that I question the roll outs are because they are so deep. The pull out is deep, but everything gets put in sort of sideways so that you don't have different foods stacked behind other things.

Here's a link to the finished kitchen blog. The image is the 10th one down.

Here is a link that might be useful: Link because I can't get the image to post :(
andreak100
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks beeps! Sometimes the biggest help of all on here is posting what you're not sure about and then having people who post the pros and cons in the way they have done things and things to consider. Once I weigh everything, I think it will become more clear which direction I should go. I just hope to get feedback on what works or doesn't work for them in order to make the best decision for my use.

Good point on the boxes vs canned goods, pastas, etc. and exactly WHAT will be stored in the pantry. Guess I need to think about that a bit more.

Probably part of the problem is that I'm sort of a mix with food. At our house, we typically go out to dinner about twice a week. I usually fix a "real" dinner about twice a week, and then we have a combo of leftovers and more quickly prepared meals (prepackaged noodles, etc.) the other days. So, I have a real variety of food stuff - boxes AND grains/pastas.

We DO also have a cold cellar where a good bit of my canned stuff stays right now because I have no storage in the current kitchen. It's both good and bad having the cold cellar because I tend to get a little lazy about going down there when cooking and I hope that I'll be able to keep mostly overflow down there once we get the new kitchen.

I'm short and I know that deep storage isn't the best for me, but it's how the layout needs to be. But with the deep storage, having the roll-outs or pull-outs will make the depth much more usable in my case.