Transform your Arlington, VA kitchen from ordinary to extraordinary with a custom pantry makeover.

Working as a custom pantry designer in the Washington, D.C. metro area is fun and fulfilling. Whether you own a Georgetown condo, a Reston townhome, or a single family house in Arlington, everybody could use a pretty serious kitchen organization overhaul. Standard pantry designs aren’t getting the job done, which is why so many of our local neighbors are looking for a better alternative.

As one Arlington family discovered firsthand, a well-designed pantry magically frees up space in the rest of the kitchen. After their custom pantry was installed, our clients told us it felt like the entire kitchen had been transformed. With the help of custom accessories and the guidance of an expert designer, you’ll be well on your way to creating a similar result in your own home.

Floor-to-Ceiling Lazy Susans

The best way to save space in the walk-in pantry? Don’t cut corners—literally. Pantry corners can be dark, dusty, forgotten spaces, where a box of macaroni can get lost until it’s long past its expiration date. With a custom design, the corners of a pantry can be little storage goldmines. We sometimes like to include floor-to-ceiling lazy Susans in corners to fully maximize the pantry’s potential.

Our Arlington clients stocked the corners of their new customized pantry with pasta, canned tomatoes, and baking supplies without worrying about these items getting lost or buried. It’s amazing how much food a pantry’s corners can hold—and with a sturdy, custom-designed lazy Susan level with each shelf, you’ll be able to house much more of your Harris Teeter haul than you could before.

Bottle and Spice Racks

If your kitchen counter currently serves as a makeshift wine cellar, you’ll love this hack. This particular Arlington couple were frequent patrons of Fabbioli Cellars and Early Mountain Vineyards and had the vino collection to prove it. They wanted a better solution to their wine storage problem, so we added pull-out wine bottle racks to their custom pantry design.

These racks are sturdy and long-lasting, and they let your bottles rest safely out of the way until you’re ready to indulge. You can view your collection all at once, which is both impressive and convenient. Plus, you’ll be saving an incredible amount of space on your counter or the top of your fridge. Those of us with extensive spice collections will appreciate that a smaller version of these bottle racks is available for spice storage as well.

Pull-Out Chrome Baskets

The urge to stuff all of your dry goods into plastic bins or canisters is totally natural—especially if you’re left with no other option. What else can we do with the potatoes and onions that roll around and take up way too much space on our pantry shelves? Families with kids experience the same conundrum with snack packets. Items that don’t lay flat or stand upright are much harder to store.

That’s why we encourage all of our clients to include one or two pull-out chrome baskets in their custom pantries. These baskets help corral those pesky items that waste shelf space, freeing up an incredible amount of storage potential for other goods. As a bonus, unlike those white plastic bins, you can see what’s resting inside your baskets at a quick glance.

Creative Custom Shelving

Finally, it’s time to get a little creative with your ideal pantry. When you’re working with a local custom design company, you can configure your shelves any way you desire… so we encourage our clients to think outside the standard pantry box. Here are some ideas that we used for this particular Arlington home:

• We included narrow, vertically-oriented cubby spaces to perfectly fit our clients’ baking sheets and cutting boards.

• In the center of the far wall, we placed custom-sized shelves to house a stand mixer, a blender, and a slow cooker—which freed up even more counter and cabinet space.

• Our clients were big cereal eaters, so we created a perfectly sized shelf to fit a row of cereal boxes.

Even in a reach-in pantry, you can go beyond the long standard shelves and customize your storage. By creating shelving tailored to each group of items, you maximize your available wall space. Plus, these custom shelves are adjustable for easy reconfiguration anytime you like.

Remodeling Your Arlington, VA Pantry

A well-organized pantry is a beautiful thing. And, as our Arlington clients discovered, upgrading your pantry into a more functional storage space has an effect on the entire kitchen. They suddenly found a huge amount of available cabinet and counter space, which allowed them to spread out a bit and not feel so cramped in the kitchen each day. If you’re looking for a similar result, these custom design ideas will get you well on your way to dreaming up the perfect pantry for your home.

Ready to get the design process started? Schedule your free consultation with one of Closet America’s design experts. We’ll work together to create a pantry space in your Arlington home that will wow you and your guests, and will help transform the feel of your entire kitchen.