How necessary is a pantry for fulltiming?

[janegowest]

I am considering two different models. One, I love the floor plan, but no pantry. The other, I am not so crazy about the floor plan but it has a pantry.

How do you all feel about the pantry issue?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[mpierce]

journeyernow wrote:
WOW!!!!! YOU ARE AN AMAZING STORAGE WIZ!!!

Agreed. Just be careful you do not put too much weight in it! A lot of trailers do NOT have a lot of wt. capacity. A little over is one thing, but not a lot. Also, be careful to try to load equal on each side.

[journeyernow]

It certainly looks that way!

[bjcarpetguy]

Even though we have an older Class A, It has an outside compartment that I converted to a pantry. I just feel that even though we full time it is prudent to
have a few weeks of food with us. So just about any extra space can be used for storage.

[journeyernow]

WOW!!!!! YOU ARE AN AMAZING STORAGE WIZ!!!

[deltamaster]

DianneOK wrote:
Every one of my three fivers I fulltimed in had a pantry of some sort. When fulltiming, it was essential for me. If the unit has the floor plan you like, see if there is some way to fashion a pantry...be creative.

A second vote for this.

You should get the one that has the floor plan that you like the best and find a place to use as a pantry.

Our unit had a narrow coat closet next to the refrigerator so I converted it in to a pantry. Then I realized that the panel blanks above and below hid empty, unused space so I knocked out the blanks and put on some doors and ended up with even more space to squirrel stuff away.

Our unit came with a tube TV. Donated it to charity and hung a flat screen on a door and hung that over the hole where the original TV was. EVEN MORE storage space.

The VCR and antenna booster/switch box took up most of another cabinet. I made brackets and hung them under the overhead cabinets in the dinette area and opened up more storage space.

There was a panel blank under the sink that hid the plumbing and the shore cable storage compartment. Took out the blank, added a door and lined the space with some wood paneling held in with velcro. MORE storage space!

The overcab bed was almost 8 feet long. Too long for standard sheets. Cut the mattress down and built a cabinet with sliding doors against the wall at the foot of the mattress. MORE storage space!

The cabinet over the entry door was only a few inches deep. I removed the face frame and made it deeper to match the depth of the cabinets on either side, then reattached the face frame. EVEN MORE storage space.

The wet wall between the shower and the hall is fairly deep so I cut the paneling out and built a couple of shelves in the wall. Great place to store those AAA travel books and paperback novels and maps and such.

I bought one of those over the toilet cabinets from Wallyworld and put it over the RV toilet. I had to trim it a little for the toilet seat to clear a brace but it had a cabinet with doors and a shelf. Bolted it to the wall and floor for even more storage space.

There was a lot of dead space between the wall and the barrel chair behind the passenger seat. I built a slim cabinet and secured it between the wall and the chair. The door is next to the entry door. Makes a great place to store shoes and flashlights. Built a smaller cabinet on top of that with a sliding top. Great place for travel books on DVD and the check books and pens and office type supplies.

I bought a couple of those wire frame wall hanging deals for the office that you can put papers in and such. I screwed them to the wall on either side of the opening to the driver compartment. Great place for the road atlas, folders with the registration insurance, title, campground directories, magazines, etc.

If yu look around your rig with an open mind and a sense of creativity you can find all sorts of nooks and crannies that can be converted in to useable storage space.

[AppleValley]

I don't know which I would rather have. Both are important. We have thought that our next upgrade would be to a "toy hauler" so we could have storage and utility room at the back (We don't have toys). Hubby is a cook, so food storage is very important.

[SailorPam]

Floor plan is important. It has to feel like home. So for somebody who likes to cook, the right floor plan PLUS the right kitchen storage is important because we tend to have more ingredients we like to keep on hand. If you like to boondock then food storage may also be an important issue because you may not be close to shopping as often. Also we try to keep heavier items lower, so if you are inclined to pack a lot of canned goods (or wine :)), keep an eye out for spots throughout the rig that will accommodate them. We pressure can meat, homemade stock, pasta sauces and chili so we have found the floor of the washer/dryer closet (which has no w/d)is a good spot to keep some of these items.
Before we moved out of the sticks & bricks I would walk through the house and mentally note what would go with us and what we would get rid of. I would look in my kitchen cabinets and drawers and try to determine the keepers/tossers. Then when we walked through the various RV's I would imagine where things were going to go. I agree with the advice to send the salesman away. You really need to soak in the space to make a good decision.

[Us_out_West]

You must have missed our post on page 2 here.

Our pantry is a separate room right off the kitchen.

[valhalla360]

I think you need to define pantry. If it's just a cupboard where you store food as long as you have enough cubboards you have a pantry.

In a house a pantry is typically considered to be a small room typically off the kitchen for storage. I've yet to see an RV that can provide a comparable household pantry.

If you aren't going to leave the camp site for a week or more having a lot of food storage is important. Assuming you go out and about regularly, having to grocery shop and the camp store really isn't an issue.

[Bumpyroad]

sowego wrote:
You don't need a space for food storage that was designed for that purpose, even though it is handy. Any area will work...under the sink, in the space under the dinette (if there is one) or even in a bedroom closet. I think you'll find that keeping a ton of staples on board simply isn't necessary. Why carry around hundreds of pounds of groceries when there are stores everywhere?! A week to 10 days worth of staple items is enough.

when I was looking at truck campers I found one that had a dinette table on about a 6 inch high platform, the top of which could be removed and about a months worth of canned goods could go in that storage area below it.
bumpy

[sowego]

You don't need a space for food storage that was designed for that purpose, even though it is handy. Any area will work...under the sink, in the space under the dinette (if there is one) or even in a bedroom closet. I think you'll find that keeping a ton of staples on board simply isn't necessary. Why carry around hundreds of pounds of groceries when there are stores everywhere?! A week to 10 days worth of staple items is enough.

[my440]

The only drawback to having a pantry is the girls usually take them over.
Otherwise great for tools boots and the likes.:W

[jnharley]

We have a large, full height, 2 door pantry. This was important to me. However, build quality, then floor plan were the most important. Luckily, we were able to have our HitchHiker customized to fit our needs. We opted for the 10 cf fridge so we could have more drawers and counter space around our stove top. If you are going to be fulltiming, you have to decide what you can live with and what you can live without much like if you were purchasing a house. This may mean you order your RV and have changes made that suit you. We made lots of changes to the basic floor plan of our HitchHiker to make it more comfortable for us and ended up with what we think is the perfect full time home.

[Bumpyroad]

when we ordered my chieftain there was the option of a pantry plus a smaller refrigerator, or just a 12 cu ft 4 door refrigerator. that 12 cu ft refrigerator with ice maker was very nice. 🙂
bumpy