The whole thing is a badly designed mess for working in, but with nice colors. The island is a blockade between the fridge and sink. It needs a prep sink. And the pantry is obtrusive, creating a pinch point for travel. The zoning of the fridge and pantry close is good from a storage grouping aspect, but would be better on the other side of the fridge, as a cabinet pantry. With a that prep sink. Then, the storage would be grouped, and the prep would be on the island, with a pivot behind you to cook. Having the sink be a hike from the fridge through a pinch point and unfriendly sharp and hot territory is really bad.

What DeWayne said.

Neither of you answered the question. The OP is asking about corner pantries, and I believe just posted a random photo to show what they meant.

Would turning the island solve the problem? I agree about the corner pantry. But if the island remains in the position that is in a prep sink would solve the issue with the walk between the fridge and the sink? @User

I have a very similar pantry, except it is longer/wider than what appears in your picture. When we bought the house, I thought I'd hate it - but have grown to love it. We have 48" between island and adjacent counters, which eliminates any pinch points. The way our kitchen is set up, it is good for flow.

@Sammie JJ what size is your pantry? I am torn between getting a pantry framedframed

Mine is 6x5. Shelving on two sides, hanging items on one. I was surprised that I like it so much.

If you added a prep sink, and clipped the corner of the island to fix the pinch point, it could be OK. But space arrangement of a corner pantry takes up a HUGe amount of room compared to more storage in a cabinet pantry.

We have no idea apparently about the size or the layout f that pic is not the OPs space I really dilske those corner pantries and in every redo of a kitchen I have done they are the first thing to go. Really poor use of space .True pullout pantries hold everything that corner one does and in 1/2 the space .

I feel like corner pantries interrupt what could be good counterspace, but I can't tell where the sink is in that particular kitchen so it might not have been useful counterspace.

I feel like the built corner pantry was originally a cost-saving measure. You could put in a corner closet, put wire shelves in it and then have two straight runs of counter and cabinetry on either side of it that were free-ended. You saved on cabinetry, you did not have to work with setting corner cabinets, fabricating counters that wrapped the corner and so forth. Less precision necessary all around.

Then of course people started turning it into a feature and fancied it up.

Same with no soffits. I think that started because you could hang cabinets level and not pay attention to unlevel ceiling by just leaving the space up there. and then people turned that into a feature.

I would love a pantry like that! Not only can it store tons of food but random stuff too, like @palimpsest said above. I know that designers aren't fans of old school corner pantries, but I say, go for it. Keep in mind the recent lockdown and supply chain shortages, and stock up on the canned/dry food your family loves. A great spot for pet food too. It's like having a grocery store in the corner of your kitchen.

Corner pantries remind me of having a room in the middle of the kitchen run. It will store things that you don’t need daily, as well as things you do. things like, cases of water (you probably need only a few a day), broom, swiffer, KitchenAid Mixer. I’d rather have a daily pantry, a reach-in, somewhere on the other side of the refrigerator, and the back-up, stock-up pantry, whether walk in, reach in, or a spare bookcase in the basement, for everythign else.

While pantry cabinets may have more square inches of shelf space, there's nothing like a walk in pantry where you can actually see everything all at once. And the floor space is nice bonus. (I considered doing a large larder cabinet in my new kitchen just for the floor space!). A prep sink would make the work space much better. Where is the clean up sink?

I have a corner pantry & love it. It has 2 plug in outlets, one at each side of door. 9’ ceiling, 6 close wire shelves on both sides of 2 walls which are each 16” deep (not 12”) Spacing is 23” from top shelf to ceiling, 17’ from bottom shelf to floor. Height between each shelf range from 10” - 16” which could be reconfigured or another shelf added. Under the bottom shelf I have cases of water & canned goods on floor plus a wooden stool to stand on to reach stuff on top shelf. I have paper goods, extra Costco size bags of chips, cereal boxes etc on top shelf. I have my swiffer & electric broom in closet with aprons on a hook. Turn table / lazy Susans in each corner, all kinds of stuff in clear plastic pantry bins, Of course there’s a light inside pantry so I can see everything too. I can stand inside pantry & shut the door. I’ve read often what a waste of space corner pantries are but you could’ve fooled me. All of my food storage is inside pantry so it’s a daily used place to go. Oh, and @cupofkindnessgw is correct -a grocery store! As mentioned, it’s a great place to store pet food too. That doesn’t take much space though for my 4.4 lb Papillon! I also have things I don’t need daily as @bpath said - my waffle iron, crock pot, griddle for my cooktop plus the aforementioned swiffer & electric broom. My pantry has a reeded glass insert in the door so it’s a feature too,

are you building a kitchen or modifying one w/a corner pantry?

Can you show a pic of your space and what the layout is? it would add some context to your question.

that pic you posted needs a prep sink in the island. if you're preparing a meal, walking back and forth to the fridge/pantry and then over to the sink (which I assume is near the stove) is a hassle. I'd want to prep on the island and have my nice triange w/everything within reach. If that happened, then the corner pantry would be fine. (it also appears there is a pull-out pantry for regular items. seems like the corner pantry holds the big ticket items that you need not access multiple times during a cooking session. spices and canned items would be next to the fridge. )

I am all for a walk in in a big enough kitchen. I just think corner pantries tend to be in the wrong place and are two small for what they intend to be, but too big for the spot they are in. They aren't really a walk in, and I don't need immediate access to a case of water or a dust buster or appliances or pans that are so infrequently used they are stored away. That stuff doesn't need to interrupt my counterspace.

I have purposely designed our last 2 homes to include corner pantries in the kitchens. I love them and find they provide a lot of storage without taking up a lot of space. I have also had a home with a cabinet pantry and pullout shelves and one with a large, hidden walk-in pantry. The cabinet pantry was easy to access but not nearly as much storage space. The large, hidden, walk-in pantry provided the same amount of storage but had a ton of wasted square footage and was a paint to access things because essentially you had to walk into a different room to access things.

What a great discussion!

There are generally more efficient ways to store items needed in a kitchen than a corner pantry, and they have a tendency to break-up the work flow in a kitchen. My opinion is they are added to a kitchen by a house designer to add unfounded pizazz to the kitchen design.

@Beth H. :I'm building a kitchen and I'm still working on the layout. I've already gotten great advice so far on another thread. But the kitchen is 10x15 and the island could be 3 and 1/2x7 or smaller. I'm definitely considering a prep sink. I like the idea of a pantry but the corner one doesn't really sit well with me however I'd like to know why

@cheri127 the work is under the window across from

There's a reason I suggested building in a pantry along with the fridge where the staircase is. You get the benefit of a closet pantry without it breaking up usable counter space.

My opinion is they are added to a kitchen by a house designer to add unfounded pizazz to the kitchen design.

Actually I find that they look cheap with the corner door that has no relation to the rest of the kitchen. And frankly, while the door on the one in the photo above looks nice, I certainly don't want everything in my pantry on full view.

I think they had their storage needs met and decided to handle the corner w this. the light can be turned off. illuminating the items now and again is like "Julia Child came by and here is the gear".....for a little break from the all custom everything else in the kitchen. Dont do a corner pantry unless there's a reason.....they can create interruption you might not appreciate.

My previous house had a modified corner pantry, a corner in a bump out. Unfortunately, my current kitchen has no room for a walk-in pantry. I am less creative and find cooking more of a chore in this new kitchen. I loved walking in and scanning all the possibilities for a meal at one glance-capers, nuts, olives, pastas, canned beans of all colors, something crunchy, potatoes, onions…..Snacks and cereals and breads on a lower shelf so the little grandchildren could help themselves, All the extra bottles of Tabasco, A-1, catsup, bags of flour, brown sugar, 12 packs of Coke waiting to be called to duty…. I could see at a glance what I needed to add to my shopping list or rotate to be used next. In my current house, things are in drawers and in cabinets-close one to see into another.-certainly, only a few categories are visible at on time. In an earlier house we had a pull out pantry. Totally my all time least favorite as many of the drawers were too high to be useful to my children and things got lost in the middle of the drawers-I could see I had six cans of soup, but I couldn’t read the labels unless I pulled up each one.

I think it is pretty individual based on preferences - personally I dont like angled walls in otherwise traditional homes, they always strike me as the result of a builder who ”wanted to make things interesting” or an “oops, what do we do here?”

Some people are visual. some prefer math. The choice is valid.

I just like to look at numbers.

I don't like corner pantries so I am not defending them in particular, but I don't think it's a matter of pure math. I could store 64 cubic feet of japanese netsuke in a roughly 4 x 2 by 8 foot cabinet full of 2 inch tall trays, (subtracted for structure) but I wouldn't be able to store a big bag of dog food or a case of water or a Roomba in it, even though it's 64 sq ft of storage.

Cabinet pantries are the same, They may be full of efficient shelves and pullouts and trays and store more. But they won't store the bulky undifferentiated crap that people like to cram in pantries and put on the floor and such, like a broom or vacuum cleaner or bins of stuff.

It is not either/or.

Behold: Math AND Visuals

Random thoughts:

- I love a pantry. An corner pantry won't hold as much as a good walk-in pantry, but it's almost certainly going to give you more storage than cabinets alone.

- An important question: Where do the appliances, etc. lie in this particular kitchen? A corner pantry that divides the sink from the stovetop is likely to be inefficient, whereas a corner pantry that divides only an empty countertop might work just fine. The amount of walking space also matters ... you don't want to create a pinch point.

- Consider that the corner cabinets you lose to create a corner pantry (for example, a lazy Susan) are expensive to buy and not as efficient as straight-run cabinets ... corners are just hard. Also, the counterspace you lose to a corner pantry is deep and difficult to reach, so not as useful as straight-run counter space.

- With any pantry, you need to consider the door swing. Since pantry doors are often left open most of the time, a pocket door is ideal ... but that's impossible with a corner pantry. You also don't want the door (or doors) to open inward /cover up your shelves. So definitely consider the effect of your pantry door's swing. This may be the worst part of a corner pantry.

- In any pantry, details are a make-or-break. If I had a corner pantry, I'd want Lazy Susans in the corner to make the most of the space. And, as someone above mentioned, a couple outlets are a great addition to any pantry. One negative of a corner pantry is that you won't have space for pegboard, which can be a wonderful pantry detail.

- A couple people mentioned pull-out pantry cabinets. What no one has mentioned is that these are exponentially more expensive than a simple closet-type pantry. And they aren't nearly as nice as a pantry (of any shape) in which you can view all your goods at a glance.

- "Dated" is a silly concept. Things may be worn out or they may have been poorly planned in the first place, but replacing something just because the style or color is "out of date" is not a reasonable choice, nor is it a choice our planet can afford.

- We're talking about an existing house, right? So we don't have all the options that would exist with a new build.

My corner pantry doesn't disrupt workflow and it helps centralize my food on a single wall with a fridge, pull out pantry and then corner pantry. So that's a positive.

I agree that the floor space in the pantry is kinda valuable (I hadn't thought about how I use it in total until this thread!) . Another positive!

But... the overall storage is.... sub optimal.

The pantry isn't that deep (its only about the depth of the cabinets + a little - so 25" on each leg. I think my shelves are 12" deep, so you really don't step into it. That also means that there's only about 12" of linear space on each side before it starts being "in the corner"

And that space is awkward, deep in the middle, dark, and where pantry items go to die.

In total - I would not recommend.

(and I'd rather poke sharp sticks in my eye than have a glass door on it...)

(and I'd rather poke sharp sticks in my eye than have a glass door on it...)

Hahaha! Please keep the solid door!

I agree that a corner pantry doesn't necessarily disrupt work flow. It depends on where everything else is in the kitchen. I deliberately didn't connect the counters on one side of my last kitchen (because I don't like corners) and it worked brilliantly. I didn't need the added counter space, and with that big island and the clean up sink on the other side, this kitchen needs it either.

Having said all of that....I don't like the way it looks. I wonder if there's a way to make it more aesthetically pleasing.

@User Why so snarky? More doesnt always mean better. I used my back stairs a pantry and loved it because I could see everything in one go. No pulling out rollouts etc. Most of all I miss the floor storage for all the awkwark things that are hard to organize otherwise, ie basket or potatoes, plastic and paper shopping bags, a broom, and a variety of things I couldn't find another home for.