The house we bought in Louisiana had the washing machine in the bathroom, which adjoined the bedroom. Was actually pretty convenient - we could do laundry without having to get dressed.
So the doxies can’t reach it?
Parkinson’s Law. My corollary to Parkinson’s Law is that the amount of stuff a woman carries around with her expands to fill the size of the purse she carries.
It’s why I try to keep my purse size below a certain limit.
I live less than a quarter mile from my grocery stores (there’s actually an Aldi and a Pete’s Market very close to each other), and I still have something I at least call a “pantry.” It’s a dedicated area of shelf space in the basement. Does that count? When stuff like canned tomatoes, broths, etc., go on sale, those shelves get filled up so I have staples around for when I don’t feel like going out to get something to eat. Pastas, rice, canned foods like fish, tomatoes, and various Cream Of soups (we occasionally do hot dishes/casseroles of various types), potatoes, onions, etc. get stored there. For me, it’s unimaginable not to have such a space. It’s located right next to our stand-alone freezer, which has all sorts of stuff. It was invaluable during 2020. I envy my sister-in-law who has a proper, giant walk-in pantry with goodies galore in it.
I have to have a pantry. My cats like to perch on top the door and watch food prep. It part of their research into human behavior.
Of course this means the odd child running through bumping the door and said cat is flying. But they persist in their studies, amid the dangers.
I keep food in my pantry. It’s too small for things like foil and sandwich bags, which I keep on a bookshelf in the hall next to it.
I recently purchased and had installed a small (dinner plate sized!) chandelier in my pantry. I saw it and thought, ‘I definitely need that!’
Everyone I’ve shown thinks it’s awesome. So do I.
When my husband and I remodeled our home nearly 20 years ago, we created a walk-in pantry out of the existing mud room, added a new mud room and extended the kitchen by a third. I wouldn’t want to live in the sticks without a pantry. The nearest real supermarket is about 20 minutes away and the one where I prefer to shop is about 15 minutes further.
It’s large enough for all the usual stuff like rice, beans, pasta, vinegars, sauces, baking stuff like flour and chocolate, canned goods (both commercial and home canned), wine, paper goods, storage bags, cling film, cleaning products, etc. I also store my vacuum cleaner and other small cleaning appliances (steam cleaner, e.g.) in there. Canning jars and pressure canner as well.
I live in big earthquake country. They don’t happen often, but when they do, they lay this area low. It’s nice to be ready for that, if it ever happens.
@elbows, your chandelier sounds fabulous! Pics?
No, but I sure wish I did. We’re in the blue-sky planning stages of a full down-to-the-studs kitchen remodel and while we don’t have room for a pantry we will have a wall of floor-to-ceiling cabinets that will be used for dry good storage.
We live 2 blocks from a convenience store and less than a mile from a full if not big grocery store with an in-store deli and bakery. A pantry isn’t essential for us. It would just be nice to have. Following Covid I’m a bit paranoid about not being food secure.
We’ve had only one house that had a pantry. It wasn’t really big enough to fully walk into but you could kind of step inside – like a large, extra deep linen closet. The rest of the kitchen sucked mightily but that pantry almost made up for it. Almost.
My grandparents lived in rural Montana and they had a “pantry” in the basement: an unfinished bedroom in which my grandfather installed double-depth shelves on all 4 walls and then stocked to almost overflowing with every conceivable canned and dry good – and two upright freezers. Grandma liked to spend the summer canning so there was a lot of stuff squirreled away in that room.
I’d say so, because I used to do that. Had two of those six foot tall metal shelf units just filled with that stuff.
Until we suddenly started having mice invade our house in winter. That’s when we discovered mice are perfectly happy to chew their way into plastic bags of pasta/noodles/rice/etc. 
Plastic jars are equally no deterrent. Especially jars of peanut butter – 1 nice little hole chewed into the side of the jar towards the back, and then they would literally tunnel their way through the jar until the entire thing was empty and cleaner than the jar was before it was ever filled. (To be fair, I suspect mice would chew their way through depleted uranium slag to get at peanut butter.
Cans, and real glass jars seem to have been safe, but everything else had to be relocated to a new pantry area. (We took over a closet and the sideboard in our dining room.)
Yes! Those metal tins that cookies and saltines and everything was stored work great against vermin. I can see why they were popular. One of my fishing buddies has a more modern built cabin, and regaled me with his experience trying to be rid of them.
I don’t technically have a pantry. First I emptied one of our bookcases and put it in the kitchen. Then we sort of used the shelves over the basement stairs for big packs of paper towels and toilet paper. Then we filled the broom cubby with a wheeled wire shelves gizmo.
Now we just need to organize it.
It sounds like you have three pantries!!!
We have a chest freezer and I really regret buying it. We lose stuff all of the time because we can’t see what is under the top layer. Next freezer will be an upright with shelves.
That’s what i think of when i hear the word “pantry”. And i wish i had one.
I have two large cupboards that hold the sacks and cans and jars and boxes of food. I have an armoire in the dining room that holds the china and serving dishes and table cloths and liquor. I have a fridge and a freezer in the basement. (The freezer was acquired during the pandemic, but i love it.) I have a washer and dryer in another room in the basement. The broom and vacuum cleaner and stuff are in yet another closet. I don’t feel like the cleaning stuff needs to be near the kitchen, but it would be nice if the other stuff were in a dedicated room/closet off the kitchen, instead of scattered about.
Chest freezers are much more efficient, and easier to fit large odd-shaped things into. I keep a list (on a clipboard on top of the freezers) of what’s in mine, and of approximate locations within the freezers; crossing off and adding stuff as appropriate.
At any rate, that’s the theory. About once a year I turn the freezers out, re-organize them, and redo the list from scratch. I usually find a couple of things I hadn’t realized were still in there, and discover that a couple of things are gone that I hadn’t marked off.
Yeah, that would work if both of us actually updated the list once in a while. Which we don’t because we are getting/placing something and will do it once we are done. Which didn’t happen 10 years ago, so certainly won’t start happening tomorrow.
We are due for pulling out and rearranging, we try to do it every 6 months or so. I went through our pantry last week and rearranged our spice cabinet today, so the freezer will be next. Then the cheese fridge. Then the main fridge and then start all over again, LOL!
An entire refrigerator full of cheese? May I come visit?
Wait for a couple more weeks, it is starting to get cold enough to smoke cheese during daylight and I’ve got cheddar and gouda ready to go. I think smoked mozzarella just adds a special something to pizza and this year I am going to master smoking cream cheese.
Damn. “Central Arizona”. A couple thousand miles from here.
I was all set to ask you whether you’d barter for produce in season!
Her hubs might be in need of some unique, specialized botanicals for his gin crafting. Can’t hurt to ask.
I’ll volunteer to be a taster and reviewer…
In the huge house in which I am living, there is a pantry (walk-in). I use it to store my brewing equipment (and is my brewery) but mostly I use it as a hiding place when my kids come around and we play hide-and-seek or tag.
I use a very small cupboard for my very small food storage needs.
I also conserve/pickle/jar things, but I dont make large runs, so they have not overflowed into the pantry yet. Habanero chillis in honey, pickled eggs in beetroot juice, cherries and chillis in rum, serano chillis in gin, plum chilli sauce are just some of the things in my cupboard… I probably should start using the pantry.