Small Kitchen, No Pantry? Turn To The Corner For A Simple Solution

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When it comes to small kitchens, optimizing every square inch matters. If you find yourself envying those spacious, walk-in pantries in gigantic kitchens where space seems infinite, it's understandable. But there are tons of solutions to make the most of the kitchen you've got, and one might be hidden in plain sight. Look around your kitchen. Are there any unused spaces? If you happen to have a bare corner, that little nook might make the perfect spot for a corner pantry. 

Even if a corner seems tiny, building or buying a pantry to optimize space can make a big difference in your overall kitchen storage. You don't need to plan a full kitchen reno to add a corner pantry, either. Stand-alone corner cabinets and pantries are a great way to get the storage without the construction or breaking the bank. Cabinets like the Vabches Farmhouse Tall Corner Cabinet make a stylish addition to a spare corner and are available in several colors and finishes. 

That said, if you have more square footage to work with, turning a bare corner into a pantry can also be an opportunity to create a whole new workspace in your kitchen. Include a countertop in your corner pantry design, and an empty corner becomes a trendy British-inspired kitchen design piece known as a scullery, which can serve as a secondary prep space in addition to providing extra storage.

While a catty-cornered pantry might first come to mind when utilizing an open corner, there are tons of corner pantry designs to suit your space, and you might have more room than you realize to squeeze in extra storage. The Armocity Corner Pantry Cabinet provides beautiful and ample storage without taking up as much square footage as a catty-cornered design. If you are looking for something more unique, but don't have the budget for a new build, check out IKEA's Pantry Cabinet options and design your own. Just be sure to keep your dimensions in mind. Smaller corner pantries tend to be around 2 feet wide and 1 foot deep. If you're working with a narrow space, you don't want to go too deep with the shelves, otherwise it will be a struggle to reach everything. If you have more room to work with, the shelves can be closer to 2 feet deep with no issue. 

As for optimizing the space inside of the corner pantry, L-shaped shelves hidden in a corner cabinet are a great way to utilize the nook, and you can also fit the pantry with smart accessories that make use of tricky corner storage space, such as pull-out racks. Turntables and lazy Susan's will also maximize storage in the corners in a pantry while keeping everything at your fingertips. Of course, you don't have to build or buy a bona fide pantry to utilize the corner. Consider simply installing corner shelving to optimize the vertical space, and voila, you've got yourself a stylish open pantry.