# Designing our homestead. What size pantry?



## jamesgregory (Aug 25, 2012)

So i'm in the process of designing our homestead's kitchen and I'm unsure of roughly what size I should allow for a good-sized pantry. We're going to be a family of ~5 and plan to grow most of our own food, will be doing a bit of canning etc.

I know "it depends" is a reasonable answer as it depends a on a few of things, but can some folks give me a ball bark size to work with?


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

Bigger than you think !

We started with a couple of 12" deep, 4'x7' cabinets in the hall from the kitchen to the garage. Then added a set of 24" x 8'x8' cabinets in the garage. Then added an 8x10 root cellar. Then added a 5'x7' closet in the auxiliary kitchen with 12" shelves in a U, shelves 2 jars apart floor to ceiling.

Plus 5 freezers.


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## mreynolds (Jan 1, 2015)

I grew up in a family of 5 and we had an outdoor room that we kept our stuff in that was 12x16. Seemed to work good for us.


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## Solar Geek (Mar 14, 2014)

When we built our house in 2012, one of the main rooms I designed along with the kitchen was the pantry. We went and measured metal shelving adequate to support canning jars, tons of food supplies canned as well as boxed, as well as heavy equipment such as larger NESCOs, cast-iron cookware, and more.

The room is 9 feet deep by 7 feet wide. The shelving racks stand 6' tall and are 18" deep by 4' wide so we can fit two side-by-side in the room with a large walkway in between and a foot near the door on each side between the wall in the rack to put things like brooms and stepladders.

We also have a half basement with the cold room built-in to keep the overflow of canning and stored food. Hope this helps.


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## Gray Wolf (Jan 25, 2013)

Our upstairs pantry by kitchen is 6'x8' and downstairs pantry is 8'x12'. 

We keep no food of any sort in kitchen. Just spices. It works well with our layout. 

We don't like upper kitchen cabinets so a pantry for us needs to be big. 

Take a look at them on the web site we have for selling our place if you like. Search for offgrid150.simpl.com 

Where do you plan on storing mops, buckets, ironing board, vacuums, cleaning stuff, trash bags, tp, paper towels and on and on? We don't like to run to town for little stuff so usually have a stock of common stuff.

Make it big!


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

You have to decide what you will keep in there. If you can keep freezers and unused canning jars / equitment in basement or barn then you will not need as much space in the pantry. I'll measure my pantry...when I drink this cup of coffee....


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

Were I to start from scratch designing a pantry, the first thing I would do is insulate it and have some means of cooling it down to near refrigerator temperatures. Food (canned or not) lasts MUCH longer at cooler temperatures. Cooling could be from a room AC or spring or well water running through a radiator, or the exhaust of one of the new heat pump water heaters.

The second unusual thing I would do is have narrow (12" wide or less) shelving hung from tracks in the ceiling. Throughout many iterations of storage, the recurring problem for me has been losing or forgetting something buried in the storage, or trying to rotate stock and finding that it required rearranging shelves. Here is a quick sketch of a possible layout that would allow a lot of shelving in a minimum space.


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## mrs whodunit (Feb 3, 2012)

I have an old pantry with foot+thick walls. Its a (I think) 10X12 inside space. It is right off my kitchen so very handy.


Love Love Love this pantry. Just makes my heart sing. LOL


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

Mine is 6'3" X 8'. It is only for my canning and goods that need to be kept cool and moist. Cement floor with a rock outside wall (2 outside walls) 1 wall against a closet. Last wall is the farthest in the house from our wood heat. But close to my wood cookstove, therefor I have a solid door(keep heat out). Shelves all hold atleast 3 jars deep. I keep all my dry goods in other area and onions in another(onions like it dry). I would be able to keep dry goods in this area If it was bigger. I am going to be building an addition on our cabin-for my new pantry, as we size down.These photos are from years back, you can see onions sprouting(I learned). The boxes contain potatoes from my garden,layered with newspaper.


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

Ps. I think my new pantry will be about 12x12 so it will have room for everything , except onions and bulbs.


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## Skandi (Oct 21, 2014)

7thswan said:


> Mine is 6'3" X 8'. It is only for my canning and goods that need to be kept cool and moist. Cement floor with a rock outside wall (2 outside walls) 1 wall against a closet. Last wall is the farthest in the house from our wood heat. But close to my wood cookstove, therefor I have a solid door(keep heat out). Shelves all hold atleast 3 jars deep. I keep all my dry goods in other area and onions in another(onions like it dry). I would be able to keep dry goods in this area If it was bigger. I am going to be building an addition on our cabin-for my new pantry, as we size down.These photos are from years back, you can see onions sprouting(I learned). The boxes contain potatoes from my garden,layered with newspaper.



OMG am I jealous! I don't have ANY area to keep things in  waas! might have to scavenge some of the barn, but that's going to get very cold in winter.


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

I'm planning on a 10x20 pantry in the new house... and it's just for two people. Be amazed how much space food takes up, when you're storing enough to get you between one season and another...


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## cfuhrer (Jun 11, 2013)

Harry,
Why hang the shelves on the tracks (as opposed to mounting the tracks on the floor)?

I would be worried about the weight warping or dislodging the tracks if they were hung.


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

Skandi said:


> OMG am I jealous! I don't have ANY area to keep things in  waas! might have to scavenge some of the barn, but that's going to get very cold in winter.


Can you build shelfs along a north wall? Just the width of a jar and the higth of a jar? The whole wall. Then cover it, even with just a thick curtian. You would have a whole lot of jar storage, and only give up a few inches.


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## Belfrybat (Feb 21, 2003)

My pantry is 6 x 8 with one wall taken up with the hot water heater and furnace so only two full walls and a half on the door side is usable. I wish it were about twice as long and I'm a single person. If I were building a new one, I'd go for and 8 x 12' with 12-14" deep shelves around the walls and one 24" deep coming down the center to be accessible from both sides.


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## Skandi (Oct 21, 2014)

7thswan said:


> Can you build shelfs along a north wall? Just the width of a jar and the higth of a jar? The whole wall. Then cover it, even with just a thick curtian. You would have a whole lot of jar storage, and only give up a few inches.


Unfortunatly we only have one northfacing wall, it's half burried in the ground so would be perfect, BUT it's also in the warmest room of the house, next door to the furnace, today it's a balmy 60 in here. with no heating just two computers! (the rest of the house is closer to 50 atm) If I can throw out the old unused oil tank which is in the barn but next to the chimney so it won't freeze I could probably make somthing there. 

I'm just redecorating what I think was the pantry (smallest room 12ft by 7 small window (west facing though) VERY small door directly off the kitchen) but I think hubby wants it as a kids bedroom, we don't have any kids though lols!

When we stripped the 8 layers of wallpaper off and removed the drywall (made of mdf and seriously rotten at the bottom) we found shelf marks on the wall underneath in a fetching yellow paint. Maybe if I leave enough food all around his favourite places he'll let me convert it!


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

cfuhrer said:


> Harry,
> Why hang the shelves on the tracks (as opposed to mounting the tracks on the floor)?
> 
> I would be worried about the weight warping or dislodging the tracks if they were hung.


Either would work, but having had fairly extensive experience of concession inventories in theatres, breakage and spills are a common problem, and if not completely cleaned up are an attractant to roaches and other pests. Hence the hanging shelving, sheet flooring (which can be laid to curve up and form a seamless mopboard as well), and floor drain to allow hose down if needed.

Floor tracks would be miserable to get clean, and crud would get between track and floor.

Think barn door tracks, or dimension steel and not closet door or patio door tracks.


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## jamesgregory (Aug 25, 2012)

Thank you everyone for your replies. This gives me some numbers to work with!


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

I have had people comment that the simple L backets I used would pull out of the studs. But this house has oak studs,hard as rock. I had to pre drill holes for the screws I used to put the brackets up for my shelves.


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## willbuck1 (Apr 4, 2010)

Whatever you think you need, double it.


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## farminghandyman (Mar 4, 2005)

our upstairs pantry is about 6X8, the down stairs one off the kitchen is about 8x8, and the cellar is 12x 20 and most of it is used, in the cellar there is a little space yet,


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