‘A pantry? Our house is so small we don’t have room to change our minds’

You reach your hand to the back of a press in our kitchen at your peril. You may retrieve the packet of fusilli you were looking for, or more likely a 1980s tin of Heinz kidney soup. Or maybe an unexploded War of Independence grenade. Who knows?

Our kitchen has worked for years on the basis of two imperatives:

• Every now and then, a press will be cleared out and up to half the products will be thrown away because, well, the use-by dates will be a past year, maybe even a different era. It's a miracle some products didn't get up and throw themselves out;
• To get a frying pan or pot, first, you have to take out every other pot and pan in the press. It will then be found in the dishwasher.

Rinse and repeat.

Consequently, there’s been a lot of talk about pantries in this house recently. Specifically, how important one is (very, apparently), and how the hell you would fit one into a small house (I’ve been calling it the extra press). I must admit I laughed when it was mentioned first.

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We have a small three-bed semi-d. The garage was converted into a playroom and utility room more than a decade ago because there was little space for the children to play, or for fairly necessary items, such as a washing machine. And, after many years of talking about the need to renovate, the house seems to have recently passed the point of no return. And so began the discussion about a walk-in pantry.

A pantry? Our house is so small we don’t have room to change our minds. Anyway, when I think of a pantry, I’m not thinking of places to store food. To me, a pantry is for people who aspire to be someone else – those who bake their own bread – rather than the person they actually are – those who buy party boxes of crisps for themselves. I’m much closer to the latter.

Walk-in pantry

Since the topic was first mentioned, every time something can’t be found in the kitchen the lack of a walk-in pantry is blamed. Apparently, all problems will be solved when this pantry miraculously materialises and somehow finds space to exist in a house where the kitchen table is just over a metre square. We did the sums. Measurements, not cost. I felt the idea could be killed off quicker in feet and inches.

I’m not against a walk-in pantry. In fact, I have definitely dreamed of walking into a room and being surrounded by food. But I said no, it just wasn’t practical. My wife said yes.

So we’re getting a pantry.

Is it really needed? No. Is it useful? If it’s located near where the food is prepared, everything in it can be seen at a glance, and products can be reached and removed without moving 10 other things, then, well, yes, it’s more than useful. Shelves, at various heights, suitable for everything from a spice rack to large cereal boxes, from cook books to the food mixer.

It’ll be a revolution for the normal state of play in this house. And there’s one reason accommodating it in this house is possible – the space for it will be kept to an absolute minimum. No deep shelves. Everything in the pantry should be visible. Two tins of beans my wife said, when the builder asked about the width of the shelves.

After consulting a local expert, friends (and Google), the popular view was the pantry should have an aisle of about 110cm-120cm, with 40cm shelves on each side. So about 2m of total width. Not possible.

“Could you live with 130cm, 20cm shelves on each side and 90cm aisle?” I asked.

“So you’re not planning to walk down it?” my wife responded.

Mean.

Anyway, we’re getting a pantry. It’ll be 1.3m wide.