I've been following your planning and understand why you ask the question. I wouldn't find the situation ideal but I think most kitchens end up having to have some kind of compromise due to space limitations. I think the DW in that location is a compromise I could live with. I would prefer it on that side rather than on the door to the other living spaces.

Just make sure the door swings into the room with the pantry, not into the kitchen.

Or consider a pocket door. We added a pocket door and motion lighting and so much better.

As long as you don't put dishes and plastics in the pantry, only food, it should not be a problem. I do not think I have ever open the pantry when I was loading and or in loading the dishwasher.

I don't think it would be a big problem. It's not like the dishwasher door will be open for hours at a time. I agree with funkycamper.

Scrappy25 - It would be strictly food, I would hope, and mostly bulk items with us. I could see some days not even accessing it or just once perhaps, but I'm really clueless how others would use a small pantry like this one.

As for the door itself, I'll do my best, everyone. It's really tight there. You should see my wife and I do our little dance when both of us are coming in from outside with bags of shopping.

If you're already doing a dance to get groceries in the house, definitely change to a pocket door between kitchen and pantry. It will be a huge improvement. At the very least, consider a bi-fold.

I don't know if there's a hard and fast rule for pantry storage. What works for me:

Dishes, bowls, gadgets, pots, pans used regularly go in the kitchen. Items I only use once in awhile go in the pantry. Example: 6 qt. pan in kitchen; large turkey roaster in pantry. Cheese grater in kitchen; canning jar lifter in pantry.

Food used regularly in kitchen. Food eaten less often in pantry. We don't eat much cereal so it goes in the pantry. We are peanut butter freaks so that goes in the kitchen. We might buy a 20# bag of sugar which goes in the pantry but a smaller container, maybe 4 qt size?, goes in the kitchen. I don't eat much canned soup, for example, so it goes in the pantry but if I ate it every day, I'd probably have some cans in the kitchen but the other 15 cans I bought when it was on sale would go in the pantry and then I'd move them to the kitchen as the kitchen stash was eaten.

If you pantry is unheated, it can be a good place for cold storage items like potatoes.

Hope that helps.

You're method seems similar. The problem with the door is important, I agree, but it is unheated space and pocket and sliding doors are notoriously difficult to seal, and a bi-fold door would be like no door at all. Once I get the areas gutted and see what I can do with insulation, I will have a better idea on whether I can go with no door or some other option. Ideally, no door. Hang a blanket instead, lol!

Well, some folks who are super concerned about heat loss in the winter hang stuff on the windows. I suppose you could do it with a door, lol. But it would just be another partner to add to your dance.

We have a pocket door in our house that is actually more like a "disappearing" wall. It's thicker, wider and heavier than a typical pocket door but slides easily. I'm guessing it must have some heavier-duty slider system than comes on the typical pocket door. And its weight indicates that it's a solid core door. With a threshold, something like this would definitely keep the cold out.

If I were you, I'd investigate pocket door mechanisms and such and see if you can get something nicer and heavier than the standard ones sold. Ours is original to the house, built in 1949, but I would think they still make something similar somewhere. Just probably not stocked at HD or Lowe's. Of course, it's possible it might have to be custom built with special hardware.

I'd still look into it. It would be worth it to rid yourself of that dance. Save your dancing for more pleasurable kinds of dancing!