Pantry Math: Stop Buying Groceries You Already Own
Every duplicate in your kitchen is sitting in the back third of a shelf. Shelf depth, pull-outs and zones, and when the cabinetry is the problem rather than your method.
PULL-OUT PANTRY
Custom Pull-Out Pantry Cabinets
A pull out pantry is a tall, narrow built-in cabinet with full-extension shelves that glide out to bring every item into view. Most units run just 6 to 18 inches wide. Dream Spaces designs, builds and installs custom pull-out pantries across the GTA and southern Ontario, sized to your exact kitchen.
What Is a Pull-Out Pantry and How Does It Work?
A pull out pantry is built around one piece of engineering: full-extension runners mounted to the cabinet sides or base, carrying a frame of shelves that rolls completely out of the cabinet. You stand beside the open unit and see both sides of every shelf at once: nothing expires at the back, because there is no back you can’t see.
Pull-outs earn their keep in the spaces standard cabinetry wastes. The slim gap beside your fridge or range becomes a spice and oil station. A dead run of deep cupboard becomes storage you actually use. If what you need is a full floor-to-ceiling storage wall rather than slide-out hardware, our custom pantry cabinets page covers that build, and a walk-in pantry is the answer when the room can give up the floor space. Plenty of kitchens end up with both.
Here’s what homeowners most often ask us to design pull-outs for:
- Spices, oils and condiments within arm’s reach of the range
- Canned goods and dry staples, visible in one pass
- Baking sheets, trays and cutting boards stored vertically
- Cleaning supplies in a base pull-out near the sink
- Recycling and waste bins hidden behind a cabinet front
How Wide Should a Pull-Out Pantry Cabinet Be?
Most pull-out pantries fall between 6 and 18 inches wide, and the right width comes down to three things: the opening in your cabinet run, what you plan to store, and the weight the hardware must carry every day. Wider isn’t automatically better: a fully loaded 18-inch unit can carry well over a hundred pounds, so the runner class matters as much as the shelf space.
| Width | Best for | Typical runner class | Approximate weight rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 in. | Spices, oils, bottles | Standard side-mount | Up to about 30 kg (66 lb) |
| 9 in. | Canned goods, jars | Standard side-mount | Up to about 30 kg (66 lb) |
| 12 in. | Dry goods, cereals, baking supplies | Standard or heavy-duty | 30–45 kg (66–100 lb) |
| 15 in. | Bulk staples, small-appliance overflow | Heavy-duty | 45–60 kg (100–130 lb) |
| 18 in. | Full pantry loads, mixed storage | Heavy-duty full-extension | Up to about 70 kg (154 lb) |
Because every Dream Spaces unit is custom, you’re not limited to catalogue sizes: we build the pull-out to your opening, not the other way around. And if the pull-out is part of a bigger rethink, our custom kitchen cabinets team designs slide-out storage into the cabinet run from the first drawing rather than retrofitting it later.
What Hardware Keeps Slide-Out Pantry Shelves Gliding for Decades?
The shelves are the easy part, the runners decide whether your slide-out pantry shelves still glide smoothly in fifteen years. Quality runners are rated by load class and cycle life; the difference between builder-grade and premium hardware is a drawer that sags in three years versus one that outlasts the kitchen.
A useful benchmark: Blum, one of the industry’s most-referenced hardware manufacturers, publishes that its hinge testing runs to 200,000 opening and closing cycles, decades of daily kitchen use. That’s the benchmark worth holding any pull-out hardware to: full-extension runners matched to the real load, with soft-close dampers so a loaded pantry never slams shut.
Hardware is one layer of a bigger system. How the pull-out relates to your drawers, corners and tall storage is covered on our custom kitchen storage page, the runner class only matters if the whole layout works.
Why Choose a Custom Pull-Out Pantry Over a Big-Box Unit?
An off-the-shelf pull-out is built for a standard opening, and your kitchen almost never has one. Fillers, bulkheads, out-of-square walls and existing cabinet runs all conspire against catalogue sizes. A custom pull-out pantry is measured, designed and built for your actual cabinet. So the unit sits flush, the runners run level, and the whole assembly is anchored to carry its rated load.
It also matters who builds it. Dream Spaces is a Canadian family-owned company: Todd and Trish Clifford design and build custom storage in Barrie, Ontario. Your pull-out pantry is designed, built and installed by our own team, never subcontractors, and it’s backed by a lifetime structural warranty. Canadian-owned and Canadian-made, unlike the major US franchise brands.
How Much Does a Custom Pull-Out Pantry Cost?
There’s no honest flat price, four factors move the number: the width and height of the unit, the hardware class your load demands, whether we’re fitting into existing cabinetry or building the cabinet as well, and the finish you choose. A slim spice pull-out in an existing opening and an 18-inch heavy-duty pantry in a brand-new cabinet are very different projects.
That’s why the design consultation is free: we measure your kitchen, work out what your storage actually needs to carry, and give you a real number for your project, not a bracket designed to get a phone call.
Pull-Out Pantry Questions, Answered
Can a pull-out pantry be added to my existing kitchen cabinets?
Yes, in most kitchens. Every Dream Spaces pull-out pantry is custom-built, so we design the unit to the exact opening in your existing cabinet run rather than forcing a standard size to fit. During the free design consultation we measure the opening and confirm the cabinet can carry the loaded weight.
What's the difference between a pull-out pantry and slide-out pantry shelves?
A pull-out pantry is a single tall unit, the whole cabinet interior glides out as one piece on full-extension runners. Slide-out pantry shelves are individual rolling shelves fitted inside a cabinet, each pulling out on its own. Pull-outs suit narrow openings from 6 to 18 inches wide; individual slide-out shelves suit wider cabinets where you want shelf-by-shelf access.
How much weight can a pull-out pantry hold?
It depends on the runner class. Standard side-mount runners are typically rated around 30 kg (66 lb) per unit, while heavy-duty full-extension runners carry up to roughly 70 kg (154 lb). A custom build matches the hardware to what you’ll actually store: canned goods and small appliances weigh more than most people expect, which is why the runners should be matched to your real storage list.
Do pull-out pantries work in small kitchens?
They’re at their best in small kitchens. A pull-out turns spaces too narrow for a usable cupboard (like the 6-inch filler gap beside a fridge or range) into genuinely useful storage for spices, oils and trays. Because the unit glides out into the room, you get full access to every shelf without the clearance a hinged pantry door demands.
More on Kitchens & Pantries
Banquette Seating: Getting More Table Into Less Kitchen
A chair needs three feet of floor behind it to stand up out of; a bench needs none. The dimensions that make built-in seating comfortable, and the tradeoff to know first.
Blind Corners and Dead Cabinets: Where Your Kitchen Storage Actually Went
Most kitchens aren’t short of storage volume, they’re short of reachable storage. A walk through the blind corner, the deep base cabinet, the space above the fridge and the toe kick.
READY TO START?
Book Your Free Design Consultation
Dream Spaces can create and install a solution that fits your home, your routine, and your style.
"*" indicates required fields