Where Bloggers Live: Pantries I Have Loved
Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes and lives? Every month a group of six bloggers share their work-spaces, homes, towns, and more!
This month we’re sharing our kitchen pantries/closets/what have you.
I am, and have always been, pantry-obsessed. Back in the day when it seemed like we were always looking for a new house, a pantry, or the lack-thereof, could be the deciding factor for or against a house.
In our first house, it was just a regular closet that we lined with shelves. Nothing really to write home about, but it did its storage job.
Our second house didn’t have an actual “pantry,” but it did have a charming original built-in cabinet. It was prettier than House #1 but I couldn’t hide as much as stuff away in it. Fortunately, the laundry room backed onto the kitchen, so I was able to store things on wall shelves and keep them out of sight.
I remember looking at one house between House #1 and House #2 that had an actual butler’s pantry that connected the kitchen to the dining room. Now THAT was a dream. It had beautiful soapstone countertops and a mix of glass-front cabinets and solid door cabinets, so you could have both pretty and practical. I have no pictures of that, but…I can picture it perfectly in my mind’s eye. It was a dream.
In House #3 I finally got my charming kitchen pantry. It wasn’t giant…but it was large enough to walk in. Two walls were lined with deep wooden shelves, so there was a ton of storage. It had a little window facing the backyard so there was good light. We put a half door on it to allow that little bit of window light to come into the kitchen. I had a giant mouse-hole shaped opening cut in the bottom of the door, so the cats could go in and out for their food and litter box…but the dog couldn’t. It was useful & charming. I hung an old wire planter on the wall and used it to hold bottles of oils and vinegars. I think of that sweet little pantry often. Sigh.
Now…no charm but lots of storage space that is hidden away. In the hallway between the kitchen and bathroom, there’s a large closet (you know, the two sliding door kind). One side is kitchen stuff, and the other side is bathroom. Lots of deep shelves.
I started clearing stuff out awhile back. Look at me with an empty shelf, woohoo. I did a TikTok about cleaning off a shelf (scintillating content right here!) if you’re interested in that. Obviously I still have a ways to go. It, like everything else in my life these days, is a work in progress.
That’s my lookback at Pantries I Have (and Have Not) Loved. Make sure to check out my friends’ larders today, too:
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Doghair
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After
Sally at Within a World of My Own
Iris
Oh, I love seeing your dream pantries and hear about your old ones. I love the old built in ones – sadly not room for that at my house now. Thanks for sharing. Iris
bettyewp
And I know I have a picture of it SOMEWHERE, but in an actual old school photograph, it’s not on the computer. I’ll share it when I eventually find it. I feel like I saw it just recently when emptying out all my photo albums, but now there are boxes of photographs to go through/scan and I just couldn’t put my hands on it.
xoxo
em d
Only you–with that talented eye for composition–could create vignettes out of pantry items! That was indeed a charming pantry… There’s something about a window in a pantry that makes it homey/artsy/special. Also, I keep visiting everyone’s posts looking for Doritos…and to date the best I could come up with is popcorn. I really need to teach everyone how to snack, hahah!
bettyewp
Ha ha, I’ve been watching a darling TikToker this week, he shares his daily lunches, usually packed by his sweet wife…he pulls one item after another out of a plastic or brown paper bag and exclaims over each one – WATER! WATER IS ESSENTIAL! A BUN! I LOVE BUNS! And in almost every packed lunch there is a tiny snack-size ziplock baggie (you know, those ridiculous like half-sized ones) with maybe 5 nacho cheese Doritos in it and he’s OVERJOYED! DORITOS! I LOVE DORITOS! Ha ha he’s so appreciative of every little thing. It’s very sweet.
But yeah, I have to say, I can’t really KEEP snacks in my house. I don’t generally buy things like that at the market. If I have a craving I have to get myself to go to 7-11…that’s USUALLY enough to discourage me. If I bring it home from the market, I’ll eat it just cuz it’s there, whether I’m really craving it or not.
Oh how I loved that little pantry 🙂
Sally in St Paul
I did not know about the butler’s pantry concept but now I want one! I’ll just take the one in the photo, thanks. (I’m not sure where I’m going to put it, though…hmm…)
bettyewp
And they’re not always pass-throughs like that…sometimes they’re just a small room off the kitchen or dining room. But this one was So Great. The house wasn’t even that ME, but it had enough desirable features, PLUS THE PASS-THROUGH BUTLER’S PANTRY that I WANTED IT. Sadly, when the realtor showed me the house it was the with the caveat that there was already someone interested in who was likely to put in an offer…and by the time I got Russell back there to see it, the sellers had accepted the other offer and it was gone.
Gone.
🙁
jodie
Funny thing is we just went to an open house in our neighborhood and Rob fell in love with this one house. Yet it had so LITTLE pantry space. That was seriously my comment, is we would have to add some cabinets in two places. And with the great storage we have now, do I really want to move? LOL
Great subject,
XOOX
Jodie
http://www.jtouchofstyle.com
bettyewp
Isn’t it interesting that out of an entire HOUSE, we can value ONE THING so much, that without it, no matter how great the rest of the place is…it’s a HARD NO.
For me, for my next place, it MUST HAVE a big window with light and a view. If I see a picture of a place that’s otherwise perfect and affordable, but it has a small window, or is facing another building, or is even a northern/eastern exposure, I immediately pass. PASS. No thank you. Some things are fixable or “work-around-able,” light/view are not.
Melody Jacob
I used to store a lot of stuff in my pantry, but over time I’ve learned to streamline my storage and only keep the things that are really necessary.Thank you for sharing.
https://www.melodyjacob.com/2023/02/does-inflammation-have-effect-on-fertility.html
bettyewp
I’m getting there, Melody!
Bettye
Leslie Susan Clingan
My daughter has a pass=through butler’s pantry and it is a-mazing. Would love to have had something like that built in our current house but it wasn’t a ‘thing’ when we were building. Or not a thing in El Paso, Texas, anyway. Brennyn uses hers to store all the odd appliances that don’t get used on a daily basis. I have mine crammed in corners of my kitchen cabinets with the food.
As always, your photographs have made art of the ordinary space that is a pantry. Our hall closet that was probably intended for coats (no one wears those in El Paso!!) is where my trashcans are. Ha! A bin for recycling and a bin for trash. And a huge stack of board games on the shelf above. Would love to get in there and clean this spring. It is well overdue. Maybe I can come up with an almost empty closet, too.
bettyewp
It’s interesting how things like that are regional. Like “breakfast nooks” are so common in the early-mid 1900s Los Angeles homes…and I rarely see them anywhere else. As well as a “pass thru dressing room” between the closet and the bathroom, with built-in vanity and other storage. So charming and useful! And yet I have NEVER seen one of those on the east coast.