Thanks Karen. I really struggled with deciding if taking out all the shelves would reduce my storage options but I can honestly say this is the best kitchen decision I made. I have room for rubbish bin, plastic bags, mixer, coffee maker etc all in the small space and all are easily accessible. I put lazy-Susan's in the cupboards so never have to reach in the back for anything! As well, being a pantry I can shut the door. I took my inspiration from many magnificent butlers' pantries on Houzz, just downsized the idea a heck of a lot!

I agree that bench space in your pantry would be a better use of all that space. I'm not quite finished building this yet, but I have a narrow walk in pantry. I put a bench at the end and I will add some shallow shelving to the left on the wall. This bench will house my microwave underbench, and the coffee machine above bench. The draw is for microwave dishes, and the cupboard to the left will be for less used electrical appliances storage. It also has a fixed panel to allow for shelving that comes out from the wall and I still get to utilise that corner for storage. Eventually I will put overhead cupboards over this bench for coffee cups etc. It will be great to have somewhere close to pantry to put groceries down and it keeps my least used appliances still at a convenient place and out of sight. Closer to the door I have a recessed area for my narrow extra fridge/freezer. I have left my toaster on the main kitchen bench as we use it daily.

Hi Joy. A few questions: 1) you could have a pocket door into the pantry, unless there are reasons you definitely don't want a door? The beauty of a pocket door is it can be open all the time if you want, but if you do run noisy appliances in there (blender, coffee grinder, Thermomix, etc) you may appreciate being able to contain the noise. 2) slide out shelves under bench-do you mean drawers? Drawers hold more and it's much easier to find and access things. You could have soft close drawers. 3) it looks like the depth of pantry space is 1.4m. Is that correct? If you were to have a sink where would you place it? There doesn't appear to be enough depth to the room to allow for two benches, one to house a sink. So, would you have sink on the outside wall? If you don't think you would use a sink, then don't have one. They take up some space that you may not want to sacrifice. Just speaking from my own experience now: I have a butler's pantry, with a pocket door, with a sink (we use it every day), two benches, lots of drawers, an open pantry to house just about anything (larger appliances, etc), and a narrow open shelving unit that sits on one part of a bench (for drink glasses and spirits). You could easily have a wine cabinet built into part of your pantry shelving unit-maybe high enough off floor so little children cannot reach bottles. I'll attach photos of both sides of my pantry so you can visualise it better. We store our wine in purpose-built unit built into our hallway wall. I'll attach a photo of that in case it gives you some ideas. I hope this is helpful. Best wishes.

Thanks dreamer, might look into a sliding window for the splashback. And have put the benchtop as 650mm for now, may increase further. Thanks siriuskey. I am leaning towards your design and using the corner as appliance/pantry. The bifold from bench height up would certainly work really well functionally but I’m not sure I’d like the look. I’ve sketched up having the area 800 deep to house the fridge and to have a step in pantry/appliance cupboard (500 deep bench, 300 step in cavity). 2 variations of the cupboard, first with sliding doors opening from centre (approx 1m opening so might feel a bit pokey), or second with perhaps stacker doors to right or bifold (this would block off bench space between pantry and sink when open though). This cupboard would be pretty big (2280mm) so don’t think we’d need the appliance cupboard next to dining area. And could have oven under cooktop. Dining and kitchen could be separated by small wall.