I’m not quite ready to share the latest bedroom progress yet—that update will likely have to wait until Friday. In the meantime, I decided to take a little break before heading to bed last night and play around with our floor plan, focusing on the pantry. I tested out four different ideas inspired by reader comments from previous posts. Honestly, all four ideas could work, but of course, each comes with its own set of pros and cons.
To start, let me give you a little refresher with some pictures to help visualize how the spaces currently flow together. I’ll begin with the music room. Keep in mind, this isn’t a recent picture; once the bedroom suite is ready for furniture and decor, I’ll update it with a clutter-free, accurate view. For now, this will have to do.
Looking at the image, the cased opening on the far left is now the doorway into our bedroom suite, where I installed the French doors as our bedroom entry. The doors in the center lead to what was once the sunroom. That room will eventually be torn down, and the space beyond it will become the family room as part of our planned addition. On the far right, the cased opening leads into the kitchen.
If we shift perspective and look from that cased opening between the music room and kitchen, the view includes the dining area just beyond the kitchen peninsula. Currently, this area is being used as a temporary bedroom while I work on the bedroom suite. Just to the left, a 15-lite pocket door leads into my studio. And if I slightly turn to the right, you can see the opening between the kitchen and front living room.
Standing at the end of the kitchen peninsula looking toward the studio door, the pantry sits just to the left. A better perspective comes from the dining area itself—I’m standing by the front windows looking toward the pantry, the back wall of the kitchen, and the cased opening into the music room on the far left. I hope this helps you get a clearer picture of the layout.
Now, let’s explore the pantry ideas. Once the addition is complete, the new family room will sit behind the music room and kitchen, sharing a wall with the current pantry. The first option is the simplest: leave the pantry exactly as it is. I like this idea because it aligns perfectly with my goal of finishing the house as soon as possible, and it keeps all the existing storage intact. The main downside is that access to the dining area would only be through the kitchen. Realistically, this isn’t a huge issue since our home isn’t massive, and the distance from the family room doorway to the dining area isn’t far at all.
The second option is closer to what I originally had in mind: widen the opening between the dining area and pantry as much as possible while leaving enough wall space to conceal the upright freezer. Then, I’d move the freezer to the opposite wall, creating a small opening between the family room and pantry. The upside is that this provides a convenient route from the family room to the dining area, bypassing the kitchen. The downsides include losing some pantry storage and having traffic flow through the pantry, which could feel a bit awkward. Plus, adding another doorway always affects furniture placement, so I’d need to be mindful of that in the family room.
The third option is more drastic: remove that wall entirely while keeping the back row of pantry cabinets intact. This would open up the dining area and make it feel much more spacious. The downside? There would be no place for the upright freezer, and finding an alternative location for it might be tricky.
The fourth and final idea is a compromise. I could shrink the pantry to about two-thirds of its current size, keeping the portion on the right side of the footprint, and add a wall on the left to create a small alcove with a doorway between the two spaces. I really like this concept. While it sacrifices some storage space, it opens up the opportunity for a larger window in that alcove, offering a beautiful view of the backyard. I can just imagine the setup—elegant curtains, a small bookcase underneath the window, and a table lamp to add a cozy glow at night.
I truly love testing out ideas, especially when they come from you, my readers. Sometimes my brain gets stuck in the same design ruts, so outside suggestions are a wonderful way to spark creativity and see options I might never have considered on my own.
So, what do you think of these four pantry ideas? Are there any additional thoughts or tweaks you’d make? If you suggested something in a previous post and I didn’t include it here, let me know—I’d be happy to add another floor plan to explore that option as well.