great idea. how bout if you did french doors? or pocket doors? or sliding doors?

without seeing a plan of how it's going to be, look at these and see if any would work

you could make it look like part of the cabinetry

french doors

below is a sliding pocket door,,,,but it could also be an exterior sliding door instead of pocket

sliding doors,,,from one side, or from either side

pocket doors

a large, regular door

Are you getting new cabinets without changing the layout? Often the fridge is embedded in full-height pantry cabinets for a finished look, but that would depend on how everything else is placed. Maybe if you post pictures of the rest of your kitchen, or a diagram of the prpoposed layout...?

Here’s a better view. The closet doesn’t have enough width to include a fridge. We are moving to a more contemporary cabinet style (slab with full overlay) so wanted to avoid the wall of cabinets that can look a bit fussy (and nearly doubled our cabinet budget because it required custom cabs). Thought about pocket doors but would loose needed access space because of the size (pantry width is 93 inches and mirrors size of oven/cabinet area).

I like Beth’s idea of incorporating it into the cabinetry with French doors. That would look the most seamless. You don’t have that many cabinets on that wall so it won’t look excessive. I see it all the time in multi million dollar model homes, so it’s popular and an expensive look.

Right now, it looks like an awkward, somewhat ugly broom closet. The ideas you have been given will be a big improvement!

Make it less deep and more like cabinetry to the right corner. French door may require too much floor space to open encroaching on the dining area.

Heating ducts and drain pipes can be moved ... the question is how much time and money is needed to do it. Have you had an actual HVAC person and plumber look at them? Can you move one of them to consolidate to just one section?