My pantry was no frills. 3/4" plywood shelves with veneers. holes from top to bottom of the cabinet for adjustable shelf position.

Mishmash - was it a cabinet or a built in (like a closet)? I’d you just put the holes in the drywall? Do you find you ever adjust the shelves?

Take a look at Elfa shelving.

We've used these in our clothes closets and the laundry room. If I recall correctly, there is a bar that runs across the top of the closet/pantry that is screwed into the wall. From that you hang the rails- the white bars with holes hanging down. The shelf supports pop into the rails and can be readjusted at any time. The shelves sit on the supports. It's easy to put up and highly flexible. There are hanging baskets and spice-type racks that might be useful to you.

Go to containerstore.com and click on elfa to see what's available. When you go into the store, you give them your dimensions and they input that into their program. When it looks like what you want, they click a button and it sends the order to the back room, including all the little parts you might forget. The best time to buy is when they're having a sale, because these are not cheap. You can pay the store to come put them in for you, but it's easy enough to do yourself. Worth a thought.

I did want wire, so I went with Metro-like shelving. If you don't, I would suggest shelves like suzanne_sl mentions (but Elfa is only one brand - there are other brands of the same style that will fit all budgets).

I have a temporary pantry of the shelves like Toronto Vet showed. I like the look and the price, but don't like small-diameter items tipping over on the wires - so I added cut-to-size sheets of thin plywood and placed them on shelves with small items.

I had thought about the Elfa shelves, but I really want pull out trays. Our pantry is going to be deep (24”) and I don’t want to lose things at the back. The only pull outs I know of with Elfa are baskets. Probably work well for bread and such but I am not sure how that would work for canned goods, etc. plus, it’s been a while since I bought Elfa but my recollection is they are pretty pricey. I wonder if I would be saving that much over just getting a pantry cabinet and not having to install the shelves?

Toranto Vet - thanks for the picture! My pantry will be a reach in, about 24” deep and 36” wide. I am not sure something like what you have would work.

Thinking back I guess Elfa has varying size baskets. The little guys may work for canned goods. I will price it out on their website and see what the cost is compared to a pantry cabinet. The nice thing about Elfa is that the install is pretty easy. I could have the contractor hang the supports and then I could hang everything else.

"Toranto Vet - thanks for the picture! My pantry will be a reach in,
about 24” deep and 36” wide. I am not sure something like what you have
would work."

Makes sense -- mine is just under 5' x 7', so I have a lot more room to play with. I even put a small chest freezer in mine.

it’s been a while since I bought Elfa but my recollection is they are pretty pricey.

Yeah, but Closetmaid makes very similar shelves, as does Rubbermaid (I think).....check out your Home Depot or Lowes.

The advantage of using Elfa is you can reconfigure or add to it and not have to ditch the whole set up and start anew. Downside is the price, but if you buy it in January when it's 30% off, the cost is easier to swallow. At least it was for me (used in master closet.)

You could always use a drywalled closet with plain old plywood for the shelves then add pullouts like those offered from Shelves that Slide at about $60 each. I buy mine on ebay but you might not find the exact size in the quantity you need.

Our pantry is a reach in at 68"' wide x 26" deep. We used the Ikea Algot system. It looks similar to the Elfa system shown above. There are several depth options ranging from ~8" to 24" but we got the 16" deep shelves. I wouldn't go any deeper than that because of things getting lost in the back. I didn't want to go through the expense and hassle of pull out shelves. Our pantry has double doors so I also hung a door rack system on each door for shallow items like all my canned goods and some bulk spices. I don't have a picture at the moment, but I really like the setup. It's very simple, it wasn't expensive and I can see everything at a glance when I open the doors.

I had Elfa previously and agree they are excellent. I am not sure if the HD or Lowe’s products are the same, where they are easily reconfigured and can do the pull outs. I will look, I will be at both stores this weekend. : )

We are basically weighing the cost of a large pantry cabinet for the space or shelving system of some sort. I definitely want to use the whole space and want pullouts, we have that in our cabinet now. Zsmith actually found my new pantry space for me in my layout! I am totally excited about it!

The architect is saying no cost difference between the two options once you include labor, but I’m not sure I believe that, large pantry cabinets aren’t cheap. We are likely buying the cabinets through his source and I am sure he gets a commission, so I need to pick a product or two and work the numbers and make sure that he isn’t giving me advice that is in his best interest rather than mine!

Strob, I would caution against buying anything like that at Lowe's because they switch products too frequently. I've found that out the hard way with a closet system I purchased. When I went back to add to it, it was all new stuff that wouldn't work with the product I had purchased. The same thing happened with curtain rods that I bought there. We're talking about a few months from when I purchased the original items. So it's not unreasonable for me to expect Lowe's to still carry the same items. From then on I refused to buy decor or organizing products from Lowe's.

Good to know zsmith. I think I would be comfortable with closetmaid if they had something that worked, because they have been around a long time and you can buy stuff online too, but I will be wary of others.

See if your wire shelves are a basic length/width, like 36" x 12 or 14". I bought pre made 3/4" thick melamine shelves and just laid them on top of the existing wire shelves for stability in my pantry. They were slightly narrower in width, but the result was perfect. A lot cheaper than a system.
I hate wire shelves!

We live in a 1920s home and our larder (pantry) is wooden shelving.

I have used Elfa in all my wardrobe and linen closets in my last house, bought during a sale each time. I would be interested in seeing them used in a pantry as well.

gthigpen, can you post a pic of your pantry using the Ikea brand? Thanks.

don’t have the tools to cut wood so either I am buying shelves or the contractor is cutting them.

Home Depot will cut your wood for you. It's not even expensive.

My locally-owned lumber yard will cut anything for me, to exactly my specifications, for free. I spend some time up front laying out sizes, and determining the order of cuts (especially if they have to use the panel saw for sheets of plywood).

As for your pantry - what will you be storing there? Small appliances, bulk purchases, large pots and pans, or mostly food?

Perhaps your best layout would include a mixture of deep shelves toward the bottom, for large heavy items, 12" - 14" shelves at waist to eye level, for canned goods and other smaller items, and a deep shelf at the top for bulky, lightweight things (bulk paper towels, toilet paper, canning pot, cereal, etc). Make sure the narrow shelves are not too far apart, so you can load up with cans, boxes, jars, without stacking, and without a lot of wasted space between your stuff and the shelf above it.

We have Algot in our basement for storage of various things and are also quite happy with how sturdy it is once it is all installed properly. We routinely keep flats of water on one shelf with no trouble at all. (We did make sure we mounted it all very well to the wall because we knew we’d use it for heavy stuff, so that is something to check with any system - make sure they don’t skimp on securing it.)