Did you catch my Instagram Stories yesterday, where I shared an update on our green European-inspired pantry? We’ve had an exciting week between receiving our beverage fridge and the addition of our upper pantry cabinets!
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Since moving into our home, I’ve been meaning to share all the details on our green European-inspired pantry, why we chose the layout, size, colors, and more. Keep reading for all the nitty-gritty info on our green pantry. Check out all the details on our green kitchen here.
When designing our home, our kitchen layout was a few cabinets shorter than our previous kitchen, so we knew we wanted to add a pantry with lots of storage. We added lower cabinets and our gorgeous Calacatta Laza quartz countertop through our builder. A built-in microwave, prep sink, and beverage fridge were all on my wish list. When building, I decided not to add any upper cabinets because I was unsure if we wanted the cabinets for functionality or if we’d prefer open shelves, similar to the pantry in our previous home. I’m so glad we waited because I would have never chosen the cabinet design our cabinet company installed yesterday.

After moving into our home, we decided we needed more kitchen storage, so cabinets were a must. I was also set on having open shelves somewhere, even if they were small.
I’ve been working with a local cabinet company since April and finally signed off on a design at the beginning of July. It was a lot of back and forth and me changing my mind (not surprisingly, ha). I initially thought I wanted upper perimeter cabinets, but because of the beverage fridge, microwave, and sink, the upper cabinet doors weren’t lining up with the base cabinets. It’s hard to tell in the rendering below, but it looked off to me and not something I would be okay with long-term.

So back to the drawing board. My next idea was to design cabinets on the back wall and feature open shelving on the right above the beverage fridge and sink. We went through a few different designs, I’ll save you from all the different versions we worked on, but all of the designs were similar to the one pictured below. Please note, that is not the window we have in our pantry.

My one goal was to hide my espresso machine in one of the cabinets. After realizing the cabinets were only 12″ deep and my espresso machine measured just under 15″ deep, we made the cabinets deeper. Because the transom window was in the way of the side cabinet, if we made the cabinets deeper, the side cabinet would have been tiny (like 10″ wide). We ultimately decided to omit the side cabinet because such a small cabinet would look silly. I am so happy with the design and how the cabinets look and love that they mimic the cabinets just outside the pantry. The countertop to ceiling cabinets makes the room feel so much more prominent. We’re still missing a latch on the upper cabinets, so ignore that for now.

I also made sure to carry over the crown molding featured in our kitchen to the pantry. I love how it looks like the pantry cabinets were meant to be in this space. Ah so satisfyingly good!


My biggest regret when designing our pantry was omitting a large window above the sink from our original design plans. We ended up with a wide transom window up high to allow for future upper cabinets. I love having a window in our pantry, but I wish we would have created more of a focal point out of the window above the prep sink. You live, and you learn, right?
Pantry Details
Now for the nitty-gritty details!
- Our pantry is 5’7″ wide x 8’9″ long with 10′ ceilings
- The Cabinet color is SW Pewter Green; we worked with a local cabinet company for the additional cabinets
- The wall color is SW Pure White
- The countertops are Calacatta Laza quartz
Pantry Sources
Sharing the exact sources below:
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