“To door, or not to door, that is the question:”

That’s Shakespeare (well, sort of). I think Hamlet’s contemplating suicide in this scene, which is definitely not the topic today, so I changed it. Poetic license.

This is about whether or not you should have a door to your new walk-in pantry.

If you’re sitting on the fence about it, do not fear. By the end of this post you will have made up your mind (let’s hope so anyway).

Have you noticed that walk in pantries are getting bigger and bigger?

It’s no longer surprising to see a sink, dishwasher, fridge, wine fridge, second oven(s), and coffee machine in a pantry. Leaving the kitchen with a fancy stove, a sink and about 20 metres of empty bench space.

The bench space is supposed to be for people to mill around, since we don’t use dining rooms anymore.

It’s the dream to have a showcase kitchen with all the everyday-life-stuff tucked away in a pantry. We all love to look them on Pinterest and wish they were ours.

What I hate is when a beautiful kitchen and big pantry don’t function together properly. Let me explain…

Let’s talk about a practical and logical design for your kitchen.  Fair enough you want it to look fantastic.  But when the honeymoon is over what you want to be left with is something that just works really well.

"I want my timber cupboards to look woody…"  What does that mean, woody? It's something that comes from a tree, right?  You could be talking about thousands of different timber styles.  Describing the type of timber look you want for your furniture is quite difficult.  Without knowing the right lingo it's so hard to get your point across.  I’m going to tell you how to do it and you will impress people with your smarts.  Especially if you remember the trade names of some of the things I’m going to tell you about.

“I’m not sure where to start, can you help me?”  I get asked this all the time from people, with a frantic expression. 

It’s time to renovate the kitchen, only every time you start thinking about all the decisions you need to make, you start to panic.   There are so many things you want to incorporate into your design that it’s starting to get out of hand.   You keep changing your mind because you’re not sure how it’s going to turn out.  You’re feeling a bit muddled and you need to start making some firm decisions, for your own sanity and for everyone else’s!  You need a step by step plan.  So I’m going to outline a course of action that will get you well on your way to creating your dream kitchen.