See real-life examples of a bi-fold door pantry at our showrooms in Oakleigh and Nunawading.

A bi-fold door pantry gives you all the storage space of a pull-out pantry with the added bonus of extra benchtop space where you can store appliances like a kettle, food mixer or toaster.

This is a terrific option if you want to be able to keep your new kitchen looking clean and uncluttered.

You don't need to keep appliances sitting on the main kitchen benches or, worse, in cupboards, where you have to bring them out and put them back in every time you use them.

Instead, they can simply sit on a benchtop above the soft-close pantry drawers.

When you make a cup of tea and toast for family or friends, you can simply close the doors and deal with the clearing up later.  The extra bench space is great for keeping appliances out of sight.  

Everything else is at your fingertips, easily reachable in the shelves above the benchtop or in the drawers below.

See real-life storage and preparation pantries in each of our showrooms.
Oakleigh and Essendon have one each; Nunawading has two.

When you've got a bit more space, but not quite enough for a separate pantry, you might consider what we call a storage and preparation pantry or step-in pantry. 

This is generally a recessed area that you can step into. Just like the bi-fold door pantry, it gives you extra benchtop space to store appliances.

When you close the space-saving sliding pantry doors, they become completely hidden from view - adding to the clean and uncluttered feel of your new space.

The pantry above is a great example. Owner Lisa Bitzas told us she loves cooking but was frustrated in her old kitchen, where she had to stretch into a corner pantry and take out a box filled with spice jars whenever she prepared a meal.

Contrast that to her renovated Rosemount kitchen, where the recessed pantry is also home to Lisa's appliances.

“It’s just wonderful to be able to walk in and have all the drawers right there in front of you," she says. “I no longer have to go searching for anything."

And she loves not having to worry if it gets messy. “We leave the pantry doors open all the time but if there’s a bit of a mess in the pantry, you can just close the doors and everything is out of sight. It makes the kitchen look tidier.”

See more images and the full story of this renovation.

See real-life examples of a butlers pantry at our showrooms in Essendon and Nunawading.

Last and certainly not least - the ultimate in pantries: the butler's pantry.

It's a separate room off the kitchen and these days it is often the kitchen workhorse - home to many of the tasks you'd typically associate with a kitchen.

The reason this works so well is because today's kitchens have become the hub of the home, particularly in open-plan living / dining areas.

As a result, main kitchen is primarily a living and / or entertaining space and the last thing you want is clutter and dishes with people stepping around each other to get into drawers and cupboards.

That's where the butler's pantry comes into its own. It's the "work space" of the kitchen where you store all your provisions, prepare food and hide those dirty dishes when entertaining.

Depending on the size of your pantry, it could house a sink, dishwasher and oven - effectively acting as a second kitchen. 

The butler's pantry above - which Rosemount's designer incorporated by adding a new dividing wall - has many of those elements; including a fridge, ovens and sink - and lots of space for provisions and appliances.

The Hamptons style kitchen looks elegant and unimposing in the larger living area, in part because of the "weight" taken by the "hidden" butler's pantry that sits just behind the kitchen.