High-end pantries are now a second kitchen with extra appliances, work stations, gift wrapping areas and more – San Antonio Express-News

While building her new home in the River Chase neighborhood of New Braunfels, Judi Seibold had to make thousands of decisions. But one thing she knew from the beginning was that she wanted a large pantry so she wouldnt have to store food in her kitchen cabinets.

I want to be able to look around the pantry and see what I have instead of opening a million cabinets in the kitchen, she said. I dont want to go the supermarket to buy something and then come home and find I already had it.

Long little more than a linen closet for keeping extra jars of peanut butter and maybe a garbage can, todays pantry has morphed into a luxe room that serves almost as a second, secret kitchen. Its gone from overlooked to object of desire.

Search #pantry on Pinterest or Instagram and youll get an unending scroll of photos of extravagantly designed pantries, with dry goods and pastas displayed like museum art and boxes of food categorized by kind, size and/or color. Youll see wine refrigerators, microwaves and smaller appliances, all banished from the kitchen, standing ready to make coffee, toast bread or mix drinks. There are spaces set aside for a crafting or gift wrapping, second refrigerators, even wet bars.

People see all these pictures on social media and then they want their pantry to look like that, too, said Carla Royder, an interior designer in San Antonio. They like it when it looks like a high-end store.

On ExpressNews.com: Kitchen cabinet trends: paint 'em and keep 'em closed

And the larger the home, the bigger the pantry. Experts say that in a home with a price tag between $350,000 and $600,000, for example, pantries average 5 feet wide and 8 feet deep, while in the $600,000 to $2 million price range, theyll be about 6 feet wide and 12 to 15 feet deep.

Despite the belief that large pantries are high-dollar add-ons, builders often install them to cut costs.

Sheetrock and two-by-fours are cheaper than adding more cabinets, said Melven E. Belt Jr., regional sales manager for Kent Moore Cabinets in Schertz. But for homeowners, the perception is that a walk-in pantry is worth more.

One of the trends in pantry doors is to make them look like cabinet fronts, so they blend in to a cabinet wall and hide. Homeowners enjoy how they elicit gasps of surprise from guests when the doors are opened open to reveal the pantry innards.

Also trendy are barns doors that slide along a top rail, according to Beau Walker, CEO and owner of West Ridge Custom Homes in Bulverde.

Id say that 75 to 80 percent of the pantries we build have barn doors, said Walker, whose company specializes in building home from $600,000 to $2 million. The look may date itself, but thats what were doing.

According to Royder, homeowners often leave these barn doors open to show off their Insta-ready pantries.

People love their stuff and want it to be on display, she said. Of course thats a big commitment in having to keep it neat and tidy.

Other door options include pocket doors, which require less space than swinging doors, or no doors at all.

If youve got a beautiful pantry, why not show it off? asked Belt.

Some pantries are even moving away from the kitchen.

Interior designer Julie Bradshaw of Bradshaw Designs in San Antonio said shes seeing more pantries built either around the corner from the kitchen or down the hallway.

Its often closer to the back door, or the mud room, so the homeowner can dump the groceries there when they get back from the store, she said.

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One area of disagreement about pantries is whether the shelving should be adjustable or fixed. Karen Meade likes the flexibility of adjustable shelving.

With fixed shelving you have a lot of unused vertical space, said the San Antonio professional organizer. So you end up buying can risers to make the most of that space.

Walker, on the other hand, said he usually installs fixed shelving in the high-end homes he builds.

Once youve got the shelving set, you rarely go in and change it, he said. Were doing adjustable shelves in only one home at the moment.

While pre-made adjustable shelving made of cheaper materials such as wire and particle board is available off the shelf, in custom homes like those Walker builds, adjustable shelving often is more than twice the cost of fixed shelving because its more labor intensive to install, and he uses higher quality materials, such as medium-density fiberboard.

Finally, over the past few years, Walker said hes been building a lot more 6- to 8-inch deep shelving, compared to the 12- to 16-inch deep he often previously built.

With the deeper shelves, things tend to get lost, he explained. The narrower shelves make it easier to find things.

Other popular pantry features include:

Motion sensors that turn on lights when the pantry door is opened. No more fumbling around in the dark for a light switch.

Library ladders that run along rails to reach items on upper shelves more easily. One drawback, however, is that these ladders take up floor space.

Movable shelving units that, like in a murder mystery movie, can be opened to reveal, say, a panic room or a safe for valuables.

Wild designs. Like the powder room, a kitchen pantry is small enough to give you the freedom to wow both yourself and guests you invite in. Make a splash with colorfully designed wallpaper or a bright, vivid paint job. If thats too much, at least paint it the same as, or a complementary color to, the kitchen.

On ExpressNews.com: 5 tips for a beautiful, organized pantry

Richard A. Marini is a features writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | rmarini@express-news.net | Twitter: @RichardMarini

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High-end pantries are now a second kitchen with extra appliances, work stations, gift wrapping areas and more - San Antonio Express-News