Across the U.S., home design decisions are increasingly being shaped by how people actually live day to day, not just by resale trends or showroom aesthetics. One feature now moving back into the spotlight is the pantry, with national survey and search data showing renewed demand for working pantries and other storage-driven spaces that many newer homes had minimized.
Architects and housing platforms are documenting a clear return to pantry space
The clearest recent signal came on April 24, 2025, when the American Institute of Architects released its Q1 2025 Home Design Trends Survey focused on kitchens and bathrooms. The AIA said butler’s pantries, working pantries and prep pantries were among the kitchen features gaining popularity, and the survey measures that movement as the share of residential architects reporting a feature is increasing in popularity minus the share reporting a decrease. In the same report, the AIA also said daylighting solutions gained 8 points and radiant heated floors gained 5 points, placing pantry space within a broader list of practical, comfort-oriented upgrades rather than a purely decorative trend.
The pantry trend also appears in homeowner behavior tracked outside architecture firms. Houzz said in its 2025 kitchen trends coverage that expanding kitchens often comes at the expense of other rooms, a reflection of how central food preparation, storage and cleanup have become in renovation planning. Houzz’s separate 2026 U.S. Houzz & Home Study, released April 22, 2026, found that 54% of U.S. homeowners undertook renovation projects in 2025 and that median renovation spending held at $20,000, indicating that the market for layout and storage changes remains active even as homeowners take a more measured approach to future projects.
Zillow’s year-end housing search analysis points in the same direction. In its Zillow Zeitgeist 2025 report, the company said the findings were drawn from millions of natural-language searches, and home trends expert Amanda Pendleton said buyers were looking for homes that “deliver small daily comforts” and can “flex for family.” That language does not identify pantries alone, but it supports the larger shift toward functional rooms and concealed utility zones that designers have been reintroducing into kitchen plans.
The AIA’s later Q3 2025 Home Design Trends Survey reinforced that same practical turn. It found growing popularity for built-in storage, multiple laundry facilities and mud rooms, showing that the pantry’s return is part of a broader revaluation of household work spaces that had often been compressed during the height of open-concept planning.
The shift is national, but the biggest impact is inside kitchens, remodels and new floor plans
This is not a state-specific story tied to one housing market or one builder. The AIA survey is national, Houzz’s renovation studies survey U.S. homeowners broadly, and Zillow’s search analysis is based on nationwide user behavior. What is confirmed is that homeowners, architects and design professionals are reporting more interest in dedicated storage and utility areas. What is not yet public, however, is a state-by-state list showing exactly where pantry demand is strongest, and neither AIA nor Zillow has released a comprehensive breakdown ranking all 50 states on this feature.
Even without that geographic ranking, the effect is visible in the way kitchens are being discussed and redesigned. The AIA’s kitchen-and-bath findings show working pantries ranked alongside other practical kitchen changes, while Houzz reported that nearly 1 in 5 homeowners undertaking a kitchen renovation builds an addition to create extra kitchen space. That matters because a pantry revival is often less about adding a freestanding closet and more about reclaiming square footage for storage, staging appliances and hiding daily clutter from the main living area.
The pantry’s return also helps explain why some older homes are being viewed differently. Features once dismissed as dated or inefficient, including separated work zones off the kitchen, now align more closely with current demand for utility, organization and flexibility. Zillow said 2025 was the year buyers stopped searching for more home and started searching for more meaning at home, a phrase that lines up with growing consumer interest in spaces that support groceries, bulk storage, coffee stations, small appliances and cleanup routines without putting all of that in public view.
Design professionals are also pairing pantry growth with adjacent utility rooms. In the AIA’s Q3 2025 home features survey, mud rooms posted a positive trend reading and multiple laundry facilities rose in popularity as well. That suggests households are increasingly valuing an interconnected chain of work spaces near kitchens, garages and back entries, not just a larger island or more open entertaining area.
Designers say the pantry revival reflects a broader retreat from one-size-fits-all open-concept living
The reason this is happening appears to be functional before it is stylistic. The AIA’s pantry finding sits inside a report framed around kitchen efficiency, natural light and comfort-driven upgrades, while Houzz’s renovation data show that Americans are still spending heavily on projects despite moderating plans for 2026. Together, those reports indicate that storage is being treated as a core infrastructure issue in the home, especially in kitchens that now serve as cooking space, homework station, package drop, snack zone and informal gathering place.
There is also evidence that homeowners are moving away from rigid design rules that dominated the previous decade. Houzz’s 2025 and 2026 trend reports describe rising interest in integrated and hidden features, statement surfaces and more personalized interiors, while outside design coverage has increasingly framed fully open, everything-on-display kitchens as less universal than they once seemed. Based on those combined signals, it is reasonable to infer that the pantry is benefiting from a larger push to keep open living areas visually calm while shifting mess, storage and prep work just out of sight.
For homeowners and renters watching this shift, the practical takeaway is straightforward. In new builds, remodels and resale listings, expect more emphasis on terms such as working pantry, prep pantry, concealed storage and utility-oriented kitchen layout, even when the space is modest. That does not mean every home will have a separate walk-in room, and the major national datasets do not suggest a uniform standard yet, but the direction of travel is clear: designers and buyers are placing more value on storage rooms that make kitchens easier to use every day.
The broader industry context supports that outlook. Houzz said renovation activity held steady in 2025, and the AIA’s 2025 home features and kitchen surveys both showed continued interest in practical upgrades tied to comfort, storage and household workflow. For designers, that makes the pantry less of a nostalgic throwback than a measurable response to how Americans are organizing their homes now.