The Great Debate: Walk-In Pantries vs. Cabinet Pantries

If you are looking to find a new home with the right kitchen or redesign the organization of your current cooking space, it might be helpful to start by deciding what kind of pantry is right for you. You have to decide if a cabinet pantry or walk-in pantry is best for you.

A well-organized pantry can help you store all the food along with other kitchen equipment, and keep your countertops free of groceries or clutter. A walk-in pantry can offer a nice enclosed space with plenty of room for shelving, however, distance from your cooking area can be less convenient than cabinet space. Most people that have previously used a walk-in pantry tend to want to stay with that option for the large space, but sometimes a cabinet pantry design can prove to have more benefits for certain homes.

Let’s take a look at both possible methods of kitchen space organization and consider the benefits as well as the negatives of each.

Walk-In Pantry

From appearances, a walk-in pantry looks like a solid option for optimizing kitchen organization. Plenty of space and a stylish design make them a very attractive choice.

The biggest downfall of having a walk-in pantry is its location. Sometimes these pantries are placed within the kitchen which takes up lots of space, or the pantry is often built outside of the kitchen entirely. An externally placed pantry might force you to move back and forth between kitchen and pantry, which can make meal preparation fairly difficult. If you need to leave the kitchen space multiple times during the cooking process, a walk-in pantry can prove to be inconvenient or annoying.

Regardless of where a walk-in pantry is placed, it will require space for an entire room. This makes this type of pantry ideal for homes already equipped with the extra space needed. If you have a large home, that aspect doesn’t prove to be much of a negative.

A walk-in pantry seems to be most ideal for visibility rather than space efficiency as well. Most Walk-In pantries are equipped with shelving across the surrounding walls, but shelves for walk-in pantry arent often built to be very deep,  which can hinder your ability to move through the pantry with ease. As a result of the narrow shelving, items often can’t be placed behind each other. Walk-in shelf storage may provide a very nice visual effect within an enclosed space, but the lack of depth in the shelving isn’t great for long-term storage.

The average price of a walk-in pantry is about $2,000. Let’s take a look at the walk-in pantry features to consider the pros and cons.

Pros:

• More open shelves – With a walk-in pantry, there is more visible shelf space for food and equipment
• Store bigger items – There is less of a need for internal sliding shelves in a walk-in pantry, so shelves are taller to allow for large kitchen equipment to be stored in a well-organized fashion.

Cons:

• Takes valuable home space – The need for an extra room takes space from your home that can be used for other purposes.
• More maintenance – Open shelves in a room meant for food storage requires more effort to keep clean.

Cabinet Pantry

A cabinet pantry is exactly what it sounds like; large cabinets with plenty of storage to contain food and other kitchen items. This type of pantry doesn’t offer as much storage per square foot, however, there are a very large amount of different cabinet storage variations. What makes a cabinet pantry incredibly versatile is the possibility of additional integrations that you can install into the cabinet unit.

By installing rollout shelving and other added cabinet components like door shelves, you can easily multiply your possible storage space to surpass the capacity of a walk-in pantry. If a deep cabinet has shelves that can roll out, you can grab more of what you need from one spot rather than walking around the distance of a walk-in pantry to search through multiple shelves.

A cabinet pantry costs anywhere from $200 to about $1000 on average. Here is a list of the pros and cons of using a cabinet pantry in your kitchen.

Pros:

• Centralized storage location – Putting your items in a cabinet pantry compresses what you need into a more compact space.
• More accessible – Storage in deep cabinets can store items deeper and remove the need to walk around to multiple shelves.
• They don’t take up much space – Cabinet pantries take up less space in your kitchen more room to move while cooking.

Cons:

• Limited space for large items – Added internal rollout shelves are ideally used to organize a cabinet pantry, so storage capacity is more horizontal than vertical. Extra shelves limit the ability to store taller objects in some cabinets.
• Added expenses – Making use of additional shelving is the best way to use of a cabinet pantry, which includes additional costs to install.

What pantry is best for my home?

The debate for which pantry is better truly depends on your personal preference. They both offer functionality and style to the organization of your kitchen. Which one you choose for your home will most likely be based on how much available space you have near and inside your kitchen. Base your decision on how you would like your kitchen to function. A walk-in pantry will work best for homes with extra space outside the kitchen, and for cooks that don’t mind the extra distance between the pantry and kitchen while preparing meals. The Cabinet pantry works well for all kitchens and can save lots of space for more storage that’s located conveniently near your cooking station.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can pantry cabinets be modified to add extra storage space?

A: Yes. You can install rollout shelves within a cabinet and or extra shelves to hang off the cabinet doors to multiply potential storage space.

Q: Which pantry type is best for large objects?

A: The walk-in pantry is usually best for larger objects since they are commonly equipped with tall shelves.

Q: Which type of pantry is more expensive?

A: A walk-in pantry is significantly more costly than a cabinet pantry. The difference can range from $1,000 to $1,800 on average.

Q: Does one pantry option require more maintenance than the other?

A: Yes. A walk-in pantry will need to be dusted if there is exposed shelving open to view as you walk in.