What's it near? What would it be useful for? What are you using near it? How tall is it? Is it the old pantry next to the new fridge? That's more of a rhombus?

You're going for Modern, right? So general open shelves, rather than display of carefully chosen objets d'art, wouldn't be on.

How about a breakfast center? Do you have anywhere in the new kitchen plan for the coffee, or whathaveyou? For the toaster? Cereal, bread, snacks? I can't remember what you're doing about a microwave, but this would be a good location for one. Have fold away doors so you could close off the whole thing.

I think this is really cool-place to keep cookbooks and the like
http://www.freshpilot.com/wp-content/images/corner_tree_bookshelf.jpg

All of plllog's questions, but also the consideration that if it doesn't contribute to anything, you could bury it.

I had a weird spot in a clients house that we ended up putting a niche in. Her house is modern so the niche is rectangular and has a simple floating glass shelf in it.

How about combine #1 and #3 with something like the following:

A set of display shelves that opens to reveal a broom closet
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Pllog. It would be on the "outskirts" of the kitchen, next to the wall oven and microwave. It's 9' high. It's the old desk area where we considered a pantry 4' wide but now decided to pull all wall oven there instead. It's actually a trapezoid and not a rhombus, very close to a triangle for design ideas though.

Going for a soft modern but as I said, I've already got display areas chosen and I'm not much of a collector.

I wouldn't want to have a countertop, since just the thought of a tiny spot like that gives me clustrophobia.

I've already allotted for storage of the everyday items. We'll have a semi built in microwave above the wall oven. I thought of putting the microwave next to the wall oven, but one of the sides of the trapezoid is only 7" which wouldn't allow enough room.

Palimpsest, that is an absolute last resort to just bury the area. I think I'd rather put in a wall oven below the cooktop and contend with bending down then leave this area "useless".

Bob that is absolutely a possiblity except we'd reverse the shelf to the inside. The area will be busy enough that it would be nice to just have a simple door.

Bahacca, interesting display shelf!

Though we already have a trash pull out accounted for, I could consider using this instead. It would be close to the main prep and frig BUT it would be quite a distance from the sink...perhaps that's OK though. I've never had a trash receptacle anywhere but under the sink (the pull out would/will have been next to it).

How about a cupboard for serving pieces? I have one that has pitchers, vases, a shelf of cookbooks, a teapot, and some other odd bits that are too big for over here and too small for over there. Tall things, like pitchers and vases, which are especially useful, often get short shrift in a new kitchen. :)

Just slap a door on it, and put in some shelves cut to fit the space properly.

Plllog, you got me to thinking of how much better my appliances, pitchers, vases etc. would fit in shelves opposed to drawers. As I said we don't need a pantry since we allotted space for everything already. BUT it would fit much better on shelves of varying heights. As small as it might be (18"), that's all we really need for a pantry. This way we can have EVERYTHING that is kitchen related in our kitchen opposed to putting the few extras, like the crock pot, blender, etc that we were going to utilize the laundry pantry for. If for some reason we still want more storage, we'll have 2 large closets in the laundry room (same distance as this pantry would be) that can house things. I doubt we'll every need it for the kitchen but who knows what the future will hold.

Thanks for everyone's ideas!

Oh, yes, it's very nice to have space in the kitchen. Then you can put things like bulk buys, picnic baskets, cleaning supplies, and that kind of thing in the laundry closet. It's not really distance. It's a feeling of containment.

It would have been very nice to have had empty "unneeded" storage waiting for items that fell through the cracks during the planning process. In our case, my husband's ice chest that fits perfectly in his bass boat. The littler one that he uses for the kyak. His special water bottles he always wants to leave on the counter for the next time he fills them. Etc.

Hm... Rosie, it sounds like you need an outdoor prep area. A fish cleaning station (inc. sink) with a weather-tight cupboard for the coolers and stuff....