DIY Butler’s Pantry: How to Build Built-In Pantry Cabinets

Kitchen, Popular

Updated October 13, 2026

I built this DIY butler’s pantry for my brother and sister in law, and it turned one plain pantry wall into a tall appliance cabinet, open cubbies, and a herringbone countertop for a little over $700 in materials. Their imaginary butler finally has a beautiful place to store the plastic forks.

When the 19th century household first introduced the butler’s pantry, it was a place to store china and hide the waitstaff. Now it’s a place to store canned peas and hide air fryers. This one is pretty enough to build out in the open, and every measurement adjusts to fit your room.

finished DIY butler's pantry with green cabinets, a herringbone countertop, and white floating shelves

How do you build a DIY butler’s pantry?

Screw a 2×4 base into the wall studs, then set two cabinet boxes on it: a tall, shallow appliance cabinet made from melamine shelving and a plywood base cabinet with open cubbies. Add a countertop, a pine face frame, baseboard, crown, and caulk, then prime and paint everything one color so it looks built in.

Table of Contents

Watch the DIY Butler’s Pantry Come Together

Here’s the whole build in about four minutes, from the 2×4 base to the green paint.

DIY Butler’s Pantry at a Glance

  • Cost: about $700 in materials, plus paint and the countertop
  • Time: about two weeks for one person, including the countertop, shelves, and drawers
  • Size: 84 inches wide and 19 inches deep, with a 99 1/2 inch tall appliance cabinet and a counter about 37 inches high
  • Difficulty: intermediate, with a circular saw, a miter saw, a drill, and a brad nailer
  • Paint: Caldwell Green by Benjamin Moore, satin
  • The rest of this pantry: herringbone countertop, floating shelves, sliding drawers, and a Sharpie accent wall

What is a butler’s pantry?

A butler’s pantry is a service area between the kitchen and the dining room, traditionally used to store china, silver, and serving pieces. Today it’s usually a wall of cabinets and counter space for small appliances, extra dishes, and pantry food, which is exactly what this one holds. It’s built like any built-in: cabinets screwed to the wall, trimmed out, and painted so they look custom.

narrow pantry before the makeover with wire shelving and a folding table

Butler’s Pantry Dimensions

This one runs 84 inches along one wall and is 19 inches deep. The tall appliance cabinet is 99 1/2 inches from the floor and 15 3/4 inches deep inside, and the counter is about 37 inches high, a little taller than a standard 36 inch kitchen counter. Your numbers will change with your room, so each step below gives you the method first and my measurements as the example.

Materials and Tools for a DIY Butler’s Pantry

Supplies

Amounts depend on the size of your pantry. The links go to exactly what I used.

Tools

You can find more of my favorite tools and supplies on my Amazon storefront.

Step by Step: How to Build a DIY Butler’s Pantry

Here’s the whole build, from bare wall to painted pantry. Let’s make some sawdust!

Step 1: Prep the Wall and Pull the Baseboard

Before you build a single thing, take off the baseboard where the cabinets will go and do any wall treatment now. Trust me, it’s so much easier than painting around cabinets later. I drew a Sharpie wallpaper pattern on the back wall first; here’s how I made the Sharpie wall.

Sharpie diamond pattern drawn on a white pantry wall before the cabinets went in

Step 2: Build a 2×4 Base and Screw It to the Studs

Both cabinets sit on a simple frame of 2x4s. It lifts them 3 1/2 inches so the baseboard can go back on, and it gives you something solid to screw into the wall studs. Build it to the footprint of each cabinet, add a crosspiece about every 16 inches, and screw it together with 2 1/2 inch wood screws through pilot holes.

I built two bases, one for each cabinet, that together covered 19 x 84 inches. Under the tall cabinet I set the middle brace back, because that cabinet is only 15 3/4 inches deep and I wanted its back to rest on that brace. The drawing below shows what I mean.

Grab a stud finder, mark the studs on all three walls, and screw the bases into the studs and into each other. Mine was a super tight, snug fit, which is exactly what you want.

small 2x4 base for the tall butler's pantry cabinet in the corner of the room
SketchUp drawing of a 2x4 cabinet base with an offset middle brace
long 2x4 base screwed to the wall studs along the pantry floor

Step 3: Build the Tall Appliance Cabinet

The tall cabinet is just a big box. The sides are two 15 3/4 inch melamine shelf boards, which come with holes for shelf pegs already drilled (hello, adjustable shelves with zero extra work). The top and bottom are plywood cut to fit between them, and the back is 1/4 inch plywood. Build it lying down; it’s so much easier than wrestling it standing up. Brad nail each joint to hold it, then screw it together, with the peg holes facing in.

I kept this cabinet 15 3/4 inches deep on purpose. In a deeper cabinet, small appliances get pushed to the back and forgotten, and nobody wants to go digging for the waffle maker.

tall melamine cabinet box assembled on its side in the garage

Step 4: Install the Tall Cabinet

Now for the fun part: standing it up! Check your ceiling height first; mine is 99 1/2 inches from the floor to the top. Set the cabinet on its base, find the stud behind it, and screw through the cabinet into the stud with three wood screws. Then screw down into the base through the back of the cabinet floor, where the screws won’t show.

My tall cabinet didn’t reach the back wall, so I covered its whole outside side with a panel of 3/4 inch plywood. The panel closes the gap at the back and hides the white melamine, so the side you see is plywood like the rest of the pantry.

⚠️ Here’s a fun surprise: walls are often not perfectly straight. Mine was off by about 2 inches from top to bottom, so I held the panel against the wall, traced the wall’s angle onto it, and cut along that line. That’s called scribing, and it’s how a straight panel fits a crooked wall.

tall melamine appliance cabinet standing on its 2x4 base before the side panel
plywood side panel covering the melamine side of the tall butler's pantry cabinet

Step 5: Build the Base Cabinet with Cubbies

The base cabinet is a long plywood box with dividers, basically a giant cubby shelf. Cut the top and bottom to the length of your wall run and the depth of your base, and cut the walls to your cabinet height. Mine were a 19 x 66 1/4 inch top and bottom with five walls, which made four cubbies about 15 3/4 inches wide. Brad nail it together, then screw it. Don’t stress about screw heads on top; the countertop covers them.

To get your wall height, start with the counter height you want and subtract the countertop and the 3 1/2 inch base. Learn from me on this one. I built mine to 37 inches, the counter height I wanted, completely forgot the base would add 3 1/2 more, and got to take the whole thing apart and cut every wall down. Don’t be like me!

If you plan to add drawers, decide which cubbies get them before you place the dividers, and make sure nothing on the wall will block them when they open.

Crystel brad nailing a plywood base cabinet together in the garage
plywood base cabinet with four open cubbies for a DIY butler's pantry

Step 6: Install the Base Cabinet

Grab a helper for this one, because this box is long. Set the base cabinet on its base and screw it down through the floor of each cubby with two screws at the back, where they’re hard to see. Then screw it to the tall cabinet near the top of a cubby, and into a wall stud through the cubby on the other end.

plywood cubby cabinet installed next to the tall pantry cabinet before the countertop

Step 7: Add the Countertop

With the cabinets in and level, it’s countertop time, and you’ve got options. You can fill the screw holes in the plywood top and paint it, screw boards together for a wood top, or build a herringbone countertop from plywood strips like I did. Mine added 3/4 inch of height, so plan for whatever thickness your top adds.

I built my herringbone top on the base cabinet before I installed it, but you can build one in place too.

herringbone wood countertop on the butler's pantry base cabinet

Step 8: Add the Face Frame, Baseboard, and Crown

This is where your plywood boxes start looking like real built-ins. The face frame does the heavy lifting: cut 1×2 pine to cover the front edge of every cabinet wall and divider, and nail each piece on with a brad nailer before you cut the next. Measure each piece in place instead of working from a list, because by now nothing in that room is perfectly square, and that’s okay.

Add baseboard along the bottom and crown molding across the top of the tall cabinet to hide the raw edges. On any plywood edge the face frame doesn’t cover, iron on birch edge banding.

Money saving tip: rather than buy a thicker board to back the baseboard, I filled the gap under the cabinet front with a scrap strip of plywood the same thickness. No one will ever see it, and it cost nothing.

Crystel nailing a pine face frame onto the cubby cabinet with a brad nailer
Crystel on a chair adding crown molding to the tall pantry cabinet
butler's pantry cubby cabinet and tall cabinet with face frame and baseboard before paint
tall appliance cabinet with crown molding beside the herringbone counter before paint

Step 9: Hide the Gaps with Trim and Caulk

Trim and caulk are the secret to a built-in that looks professional. Shoe molding covers the gap where the counter meets the wall, and quarter round hides the corners inside each cubby. Cut them at 45 degrees where two pieces meet and attach them with brad nails.

Then caulk every corner, joint, and seam with latex caulk and smooth it with your finger. On the countertop, use clear caulk instead. It goes on white and dries clear, so don’t panic when it looks white.

inside corner of a plywood cubby with trim along the bottom before caulk
caulking the seams of the herringbone countertop and cubby cabinet before paint

Step 10: Prime and Paint

Tape off and cover everything you don’t want painted, especially that countertop you worked so hard on. I sprayed one coat of primer, then two coats of Caldwell Green by Benjamin Moore in satin with a paint sprayer, letting each coat dry completely. A sprayer makes a pantry this size go fast, but a brush and roller work too.

For the full method, from cleaning and sanding to the primer and paint I trust most, follow my step by step guide to painting cabinets.

cubby cabinet taped off with plastic sheeting and painter's tape for spray paint
tall pantry cabinet taped off with plastic and painter's tape for spray paint
tall pantry cabinet sprayed Caldwell Green by Benjamin Moore
cubby base cabinet sprayed Caldwell Green inside a plastic paint tent
Crystel holding a HomeRight paint sprayer in the half painted pantry

Step 11: Cut Shelves for the Appliance Cabinet

Cut 3/4 inch plywood shelves wide enough to rest on the pegs, narrow enough to tilt into the cabinet, and short enough to clear the face frame. Mine were 14 3/4 x 15 1/4 inches.

Here comes the satisfying part. Before you paint the shelves, set them on the pegs and load your appliances to find the heights that work. I test fit mine with the toaster, stand mixer, and pressure cooker before anything got paint. Then paint the shelves and set them back on the pegs.

small appliances test fit on unpainted plywood shelves in a DIY butler's pantry cabinet
plywood pantry shelves painted green and drying on a drop cloth outside

Finishing Touches: Countertop, Shelves, Drawers, and a Sharpie Wall

Four smaller projects finished this pantry, and each one has its own tutorial:

finished DIY butler's pantry appliance cabinet in green with a herringbone counter and floating shelves

How Much Does It Cost to Build a DIY Butler’s Pantry?

About $700 in materials, not counting paint or the countertop. The plywood, melamine, pine, 2x4s, and trim are about $595, and the five sheets of 3/4 inch plywood are most of that at about $70 each. Caulk, primer, wood filler, edge banding, shelf pegs, tape, nails, and screws add about $110.

For comparison, stock unfinished cabinets from Home Depot in a similar layout, an 18 x 84 inch pantry cabinet and two 36 inch base cabinets, run about $655 before trim, paint, or a countertop. Building it yourself costs about the same, but it fits your wall exactly and gives you open cubbies instead of doors.

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DIY Butler’s Pantry FAQs

How much does it cost to build a DIY butler’s pantry?

Mine cost about $700 in materials, not counting paint or the countertop. Most of that is five sheets of 3/4 inch plywood at about $70 each, plus melamine shelving, pine, 2x4s, and trim. Caulk, primer, nails, and screws add about $110. Stock unfinished cabinets in a similar layout cost about $655 before trim and paint, so the real win of building it yourself is a perfect fit and open cubbies.

How deep should a butler’s pantry be?

Standard kitchen base cabinets are 24 inches deep and uppers are about 12, but a butler’s pantry can be shallower. Mine is 19 inches deep at the counter, and the tall appliance cabinet is only 15 3/4 inches deep inside. That was on purpose: in deeper cabinets, small appliances get pushed to the back and forgotten. Measure your largest appliance, like a mixer or slow cooker, and build just deep enough for it.

Can you build a butler’s pantry with stock cabinets?

Yes. Stock base and pantry cabinets from a home improvement store go in faster, and an 18 x 84 inch unfinished pantry cabinet with two 36 inch base cabinets runs about $655 at Home Depot. I built mine from plywood and melamine instead because the wall was 84 inches, an odd size for stock cabinets, and because I wanted open cubbies. Either way, a face frame, trim, and paint are what make it look built in.

What is the difference between a butler’s pantry and a regular pantry?

A regular pantry is mostly for food storage, often a closet or walk in room with shelves. A butler’s pantry is a serving and staging area, traditionally between the kitchen and dining room, with counter space and cabinets for dishes, small appliances, and serving pieces. Many modern ones, like this one, do both: canned food in the cubbies, appliances in the tall cabinet, and a countertop for setting things down.

How tall should the counter be in a butler’s pantry?

Most kitchen counters are 36 inches high, and a butler’s pantry usually matches. Mine is about 37 inches. When you plan yours, start from the counter height you want and subtract the countertop thickness and the 3 1/2 inch 2×4 base before you cut the cabinet walls. I skipped that math the first time, built the cabinet itself to 37 inches, and had to cut every wall down once it was sitting on the base.

Do you need a countertop in a butler’s pantry?

You don’t need a fancy one, but a counter is what makes a butler’s pantry useful. The cheapest option is to fill the screw holes in the plywood cabinet top and paint it the same color as the cabinets. A wood top made from boards screwed together is a step up. I built a herringbone countertop from plywood strips and sealed it with matte epoxy, so it holds up to everyday spills.

What do you store in a butler’s pantry?

Whatever you reach for often but don’t want on your kitchen counter. This butler’s pantry holds small appliances on adjustable shelves in the tall cabinet, canned goods in the cubbies, and dishes on two floating shelves above the counter. Sliding drawers in two of the cubbies keep the back of those deep spaces reachable. Plan your storage before you build, because it decides your depths, shelf spacing, and where drawers go.

Can you build a butler’s pantry in a small space?

Yes. This butler’s pantry fits along a single 84 inch wall in a narrow pantry room, with a 19 inch deep counter and a 15 3/4 inch deep appliance cabinet. Shallow cabinets keep the walkway open, and open cubbies mean no doors swinging into the room. If you only have a few feet, a single base cabinet with a countertop and a couple of floating shelves above it still gives you the look and most of the function.

The Bottom Line on a DIY Butler’s Pantry

A DIY butler’s pantry is two boxes on a 2×4 base: a tall, shallow appliance cabinet and a cubby base cabinet, trimmed and painted to look built in, for about $700 in materials. If you tell a friend one thing, tell them to subtract the base height before they cut the cabinet walls. It’s the one number that’s easy to forget and painful to fix.

Have you ever built a butler’s pantry, or are you planning one? Tell me about it or ask me anything in the comments. And if you’re a visual learner, all of my project stories are saved in the highlights on my Instagram account @crystelmontenegrohome.

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  1. Denise says:
    December 30, 2025 at 2:37 am

    Can you tell me what color green that is? Thank you!

    Reply

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