The kitchen. It’s the heart of the home. The place where everyone comes together—to eat, chat, visit, do homework, keep track of the household schedule, and discuss family matters. With all this activity comes…stuff. Which leads to messy kitchens. New Home Inc. came up with the kitchen clutter solution.

New Home Inc. was designing new homes not long before the pandemic put a new twist on the way we shelter. Our team had already invested considerable time into understanding what buyers want, as well as what they need, even when they didn’t know it themselves. We were in the process of forecasting lifestyle needs when things changed.

Suddenly, more people were using the kitchen, often simultaneously. More people, more meals, more traffic. Pantries were becoming stuffed, and then overstuffed. Home deliveries brought more supplies, like small appliances and baking trays and pans. It might have seemed like a good time to upgrade your cookware, only to realize you couldn’t part with the old ones.

Oh no, overflow! Too much stuff and not enough space. Our home designers found inspiration from homes built in the days when homeowners had butlers and scullery maids. The butler’s pantry is a space between the kitchen and the dining room. It was intended to be used by the butler when serving guests and clearing the table. The butler’s pantry was set apart by a door so that any sounds and aromas from the kitchen did not permeate the dining room.

The idea makes sense. Shift some of the kitchen’s duties to a separate place. So, when looking at what homeowners should have in their homes—as an included feature, not an upgrade—our designers brought back the butler’s pantry, also known as a service pantry.

We modernized it, of course.

The New Home Inc. Messy Kitchen

Today’s homeowners and cooks can feel overburdened and overwhelmed by the clutter that seems to grow in the kitchen. It’s a drop zone for just about anything—from mail and backpacks to dirty dishes and phone chargers. The available work and storage space feels like it’s shrinking.

New Home Inc.’s modern version of the butler’s pantry is called the “messy kitchen”. It’s a nook next to the kitchen, in addition to the regular pantry used for storage. The messy kitchen is truly a kitchen clutter solution. This valuable nook gives you the extra space to stash anything from seasonal tableware and small appliances to overflow from your kitchen cabinets.

We designed the messy kitchen to allow for personalization. Start with the space, which is separated from the kitchen by a pocket door. You can add cabinets, shelves, plate or wine rack, a sink, dishwasher, mini-fridge, wine chiller, tap, and anything else that would lessen the load in your main kitchen. Think of all the items you use rarely but still need to have nearby. That’s what can go in your messy kitchen.

One another distinction: While butler’s pantries historically separated the kitchen from the formal dining room, the messy kitchen is an extension of just the kitchen. It’s not a pass-through to a formal dining room. As we approached modern home design, we recognized that many homeowners prefer the open floor plan—with the kitchen, living room, and family dining in one large wall-less space—rather than a separate dining room that is only used occasionally. Again, we looked at the way families live in their homes. They frequently want more useful spaces than a formal dining room, which is why we also include a flex room in our floor plans. The messy kitchen in our cutting edge homes are specifically planned as a natural, practical, and smart extension of the kitchen.

Uses for a Messy Kitchen

The messy kitchen is a standard feature in our new homes for sale near Raleigh, NC. Whether you choose one of our single-family homes or townhomes, this valuable space is included. Your choice is to decide on the uses for an extra pantry in your new home.

The New Home Inc. messy kitchen presents a kitchen clutter solution that expands the room’s efficiency. We can build in floor-to-ceiling shelves if you want a quick and easy view of all that you’ve placed there. How about a pot rack hanging out of sight from your kitchen but within easy reach when you need it? You can add drawers to conveniently access your excess items, like holiday dishes and gadgets you might need to find quickly someday, such as the fish-shaped soup tureen that only surfaces when your mother-in-law visits.

The entertainer’s stage

You’re busily preparing to serve guests—trying to time everything to come out of the oven at the right time, making sure you don’t forget the little things, like condiments and serving spoons. You’re bouncing and twirling around the kitchen as you look for things, probably also side-stepping the people who are trying to get your attention while you’re too busy to deal with them. What if you could avoid this chaos?

Here’s where your messy kitchen comes in handy. Use it as a staging area. Place your serving dishes (utensils included) on the counter with a note of what will go in there and what time you need to put it in your oven or take it out of the fridge. Keep everything here that you plan to serve, so you don’t have to go looking for anything or overlook something.

Then, when you’re clearing up, put the dirty dishes in the messy kitchen to prevent unsightly piles in your kitchen. This is exactly what the messy kitchen is named for! And if you install a dishwasher in this space, you can load up the dirty dishes right there, instead of taking them back to the kitchen after everyone has left.

More storage, please

How many times have you said, “I just have too much storage space in my home”? Probably never.

The messy kitchen can be personalized with the cabinetry you want, including drawers, shelves, racks, and pullouts. Use it for the small appliances you use once in a while, like the spiralizer, panini maker, slow cooker, immersion blender, juicer, Instant Pot, and the various food processors. Think of the space you can free up in your kitchen by moving these items to the extra pantry!

Over the past few years, did you overload your kitchen storage with everything needed to make sourdough bread (which seemed like a great idea at the time)? Would you like to relegate the stand mixer, proofing box, and bread machine to somewhere outside the kitchen?

The messy kitchen is also an ideal place to keep your serving ware and seasonal dishware. You’ll always know where these things are when you store them in a place that makes sense, instead of buried in a closet or drawer somewhere.

Personal coffee bar

One of the most requested uses for an extra pantry is a coffee bar/beverage station. Set up your coffee maker, espresso machine, French press, or whatever your brewing appliance of choice might be. Use the mini-fridge and cabinets you’ve installed in the messy kitchen to keep all those supplies—coffee, tea, hot chocolate, a water dispenser, cups, mugs, bean grinder, and anything else to keep thirsty, caffeine-seeking people out of your way. Divert them right to the coffee bar and beverage station.

Snack time

“Just grabbing a quick snack” isn’t always as quick as you’d hope. Between staring at the open refrigerator, standing in front of the microwave, and answering the question, “What do we have to eat?”, snackers disrupt your kitchen.

Divert them to a designated snack station in your messy kitchen. Pack the mini-fridge with drinks, yogurt, fruit, and the makings for a sandwich. Stock a cabinet or basket with quick snacks and leave a shopping list for people to add their preferences.

Using the messy kitchen as a snack bar reduces the kitchen traffic, clutter, and mess!

Wine cellar or beer bar

Do you enjoy your adult beverages? Stock them in the messy kitchen. Just add a wine chiller, kegerator, and mini-fridge. We can install wine racks in your messy kitchen, too! Put mixers and barware in the cabinets. Keep a charcuterie board handy and some essentials in the fridge. When you’re entertaining—a group or just yourself!—everything is within reach, and in one place.

Baker’s butler

Is baking your comfort thing? Equip your messy kitchen to keep everything in one place. Think about those holiday baking extravaganzas when you need room to spread out the cooling racks or all the plates of confections that would make Paul Hollywood proud. You might even want to stash a roll-out baking station in your messy kitchen, complete with drawers that contain your go-to tools (mixing bowls, rolling pin, measuring cups, and spoons). Roll out the baking cart from the messy kitchen and then wheel it back when you’re done.

From modern kitchens to modern homes

New Home Inc.’s messy kitchens provide the ideal kitchen clutter solution. The addition of the multi-functional service pantry ensures that your primary kitchen has less traffic, frees up storage space, and removes countertop clutter. New Home Inc.’s modern kitchen design considers the broader list of ways you use this hub of the home.

This visionary approach to building future-proof homes isn’t limited to our modern kitchen design. It can be seen throughout our cutting-edge new homes for sale near Raleigh, NC. Here are some other ways we’ve redefined modern home design.

• The included smart home automation package includes a smart home security system, smart lighting, smart thermostat, and a whole home network panel that provides one easily accessible place for your smart technology connections.
• The smart door delivery center is a fully enclosed space between your exterior and interior front doors and secured by a smart lock to protect your packages. The delivery person unlocks the exterior door, using an authorized code, and leaves the package in front of the interior front door, having no access to the home itself. The door automatically relocks when closed.
• CAT6 ether cabling is all we use to wire our new homes, because it delivers a stronger, more reliable connection throughout your home to accommodate all the devices and users without dead zones or other problems.
• The electric vehicle charging station rough-in is ready to easily connect when you need to finish the installation.
• To protect the indoor air quality, a whole home air filtration system filters particles out of the air inside your home
• An oversized kitchen island offers more surface workspace as well as comfortable seating on 3 sides, not just 1 or 2, without banging your knees on the base.
• In addition to the messy kitchen, we put a pocket office near the kitchen, making it private and convenient to use as an office, homework station, media room, library, fitness studio, or private retreat.
• An organized drop zone is included in our single-family homes and townhomes, with a hall bench, cubbies, and hooks, providing a space to keep things organized, another clutter solution!
• Pet spaces include a hideaway under the stairs for 2-story plans, and a grooming station that can be added to the laundry room or garage.

Do you want a home that performs for you—with energy efficiency, indoor air quality, and modern features that add comfort, convenience, and safety? New Home Inc. invites you to explore our communities of new homes for sale near Raleigh, NC. We build single-family homes and townhomes in the most sought-after Raleigh suburbs, including Angier, Clayton, Fuquay-Varina, Lillington, Smithfield, and WIllow Spring. Many of our communities feature large homesites, from a half-acre to 2 acres or more!

Browse New Home Inc.’s floor plans, and use the virtual tour and interactive feature on each one to get a better look. Then, see the homes for yourself by planning a personal tour of our model homes and move-in ready new construction homes.

Contact our new homes specialist to see our future-proof homes, and the messy kitchens’ kitchen clutter solution.